Jemez Mountains Railroads, Santa Fe National Forest, New Mexico

The logging industry envisioned by Sidney Weil and brought into being by the Porter family proved to be an enduring and profitable enterprise. Modern trucks running on paved highways superseded the Santa Fe Northwestern Railway, but the areas logged extended for miles beyond its length into the Santa Fe National Forest and the Valle Grande. It was not until the 1970s that large scale logging in these areas slowed to a halt. For most of these years, the route of the SFNW served as the main haulage route for logs going to the mills, confirming its value as a route into the mountains. Even today, as a forest road, the old railroad bed provides access to a large area of the Cañon de San Diego Grant.

Similarly, the primitive La Ventana coal mines can be viewed as the predecessors of the immense strip mines of the San Juan Basin. Based in part on the same coal beds, the La Ventana mines failed for lack of customers and transportation, not for any lack of coal.

All in all, Sidney Weil's visions of development have come to pass for the most part, although it has taken about two generations for them to come to fruition.

Figure 63. The approach to the first tunnel in Guadalupe Box, The road seen on the left is directly on the old railroad bed. This view was photographed on August 21, 1960, by Henry E. Bender, Jr.