Description: The railroad opened the west, expanding eastern cultural influences and connecting San Francisco to the midwest and eastern industrial centers. The western cattle, crop, and mineral wealth are able to be explored and exploited.
The earliest documented railroad in Arizona was the 1880 Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, which ran as a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad between Albuquerque, NM and Needles, CA along the modern BNSF mainline that runs through Kingman, Flagstaff, Winslow, Holbrook, and east into New Mexico.
New rail lines are still being constructed in Arizona, including the Phoenix Metro Light Rail and the expansion of the Union Pacific (formerly Southern Pacific) tracks between Phoenix and Tucson.
This label should be used not only for current rail line and track, but also for any abandoned railroad right-of-ways. Many of these have been reclaimed into roads, hiking, and biking trails across not only Arizona but the entire country.
Images of train cars or locomotives should be associated under the appropriate label. This is for tracks and right-of-way only.