Mexican Canyon Trestle

The trestle went up in 1899, a curved timber span 323 feet long that carried the line into Mexican Canyon on its way up the mountain. It outlasted the railroad: when the tracks were pulled up in 1948 the trestle stayed, and in 1979 it was entered in the National Register of Historic Places. A companion nearby, the S trestle, once even more impressive, has since collapsed. Dorothy Jensen Neal's book of 1966, which the panel credits with keeping the line's memory, was printed in Alamogordo, as was her history of the Lodge.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Mexican Canyon Trestle Spanning the Mexican Canyon of the Sacramento Mountains, this is the largest remaining trestle of 58 constructed for Charles B. Eddy's Alamogordo and Sacramento Railway. Climbing 4,747 feet in 32.5 miles, the spur accessed timber for Eddy's El Paso and Northeastern Railway. It also carried passengers in open-sided cars to Cloudcroft resorts and cabins. The line was abandoned in 1947, but immortalized in The Cloud-Climbing Railroad by Dorothy Jensen Neal. The 323-feet-long trestle is Cloudcroft's symbol, and was restored by the U.S. Forest Service in 2010.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• White Sands National Park — 28 mi
  The largest gypsum dunefield on Earth, a national park since 2019, surrounded on all sides by military ground whose missile tests close its only road for hours at a time.

More markers nearby

• Cloud-Climbing Railroad — 0.8 mi
• New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired — 13 mi
• Commission for the Blind Orientation Center — 14 mi
• La Luz — 14 mi