NEW MEXICO: End of the Chili Line

Santa Fe's stucco buildings were hung with banners and streamers, decorated with huge, garish masks. The streets were noisy with drunken yells all through the night and far into the morning. New Mexico's City of the Holy Faith was busy last week celebrating La Fiesta, and in no mood to mourn.

But one grey day, while Santa Fe's celebrants slept, a little group of mourners gathered in the yellow old Denver and Rio Grande Western depot to watch the train pull out. It was the last run of the "Chili Line" and the end of the D.&R.G.W.'s famous track—the narrow-gauge...