We recently took the Amtrak Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles. We stopped in several locations along the way to break up the trip, but one of the highlights was passing through Lamy, NM.

The Lamy depot was originally built for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in 1909. The terrain around Santa Fe made running a direct line impossible, so they stopped at Lamy and built a spur line northward to Santa Fe.

For many of the Manhattan Project staff and families, Lamy was the first stop on their way to Los Alamos. Further, many of the scientists at the Chicago Met Lab (University of Chicago’s metallurgical laboratory) rode the Super Chief (now Amtrak’s Southwest Chief), which began regular scheduled service in May 1937, averaging 60mph for 36 hours and 49 minutes over 2,227 miles.

The recent Oppenheimer movie used original Pullman cars from Sky Railway, an excursion train venture owned by George R.R. Martin and others that runs on the old spur line previously owned by the Santa Fe Southern Railway. Some of the interiors were set dressed to look like they were from the 1940s.

Although our Amtrak adventured started in Union Station in Chicago, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway departed from the old Dearborn Station, which discontinued rail service on May 2, 1971.

It was on this railway that the first shipment of uranium 235 (200 grams of 12% enrichment) traveled from the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge to Los Alamos in March, 1944. From the Y-12 DOE web site files:

“A most unusual method was used to transport this extremely valuable material. It was carefully packaged in a small room in the center of Building 9733-1. Then the material was placed in gold-lined nickel containers about the size of coffee cups. Two of these containers were placed in a briefcase size container and the container strapped to an Army Lieutenant’s arm. He was dressed in a suit to look like a salesman and along with a couple of other Army personnel also dressed as salesmen, was driven to Knoxville where he boarded a passenger train to Chicago.

“At Chicago, the courier transferred his case to yet another Army Lieutenant also dressed as a salesman who took the material on to Los Alamos. A new set of escorts were assigned to this new courier and the original group returned to Oak Ridge by way of Knoxville.”*

*[Y-12 National Security Complex, Department of Energy. (2006, July 12). Operations start and shipments begin. https://www.y12.doe.gov/sites/default/files/assets/document/07-12-06.pdf]

We’ve been to Lamy depot numerous times. You can read about it here: Atomic Snapshots: Lamy Station.