Re: Tracing the Chili Line

Where the main road to Los Alamos crosses the Rio Grande, if you look just to the left you can see a water gauging station. That was the north abutment of the steel truss bridge of the Chile Line. Between there and the present higway bridge is another old highway bridge. This was the original bridge to Los Alamos, and all of the materials and people during the Manhattan Project era used it. It is being preserved.
The D&RG had a station here named Otowi, which was a boxcar body. It sat just about in the middle of the present highway on the west end of the bridge.
From there, heading north, the railroad grade roughly parallels NM 30 to Espanola, and is on the west side of the river. From time to time after a heavy storm runoff, the stubs of trestle pilings in the small arroyos will briefly appear, only to be gradually covered up again. But generally the roadbed is hard to spot.
Heading south from Otowi, toward Santa Fe, the roadbed is readily apparent, but only by foot. It stays immediately on the east bank of the Rio Grande for perhaps 10 miles, after which it starts a climb to the SE into Santa Fe.
CJ