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One of my favorite photo spots along I-10 in Arizona was Picacho Peak, about midway between Tucson and Phoenix.  There was a lot of traffic along the rail line, and it was never slow or short.  The reason I shot photos there is because the Peak itself appears to be the erroded core of an old volcano, and provides a neat contrast to your basic flat Sonoran desert.  Sun angles were usually good to catch trains with the peak behind it. Historically, Picacho Peak is interesting as it is claimed to be the furthest west a "battle" of the Civil War was fought.  Tucson had been occupied by a Confederate force from El Paso.  A Union column from California was marching east to clear the Arizona territory of the rebels.  Apparently a Union platoon sized scouting party ran into a Confederate patrol from Tucson, took casualties and broke contact.  The Confederates pulled back to Tucson, and then withdrew back to El Paso. I don't know if the line from Benson, east of Tucson, down to Douglas on the Mexican border is still active.  When I was stationed at Fort Huachuca, there was very little train traffic along this line, but there was an ancient SP switcher handling freight in Douglas from Mexico.  What is interesting about this particular line is the legend that may or may not be true.  It's said that the SP construction workers had no problems building into Tombstone- "the town too tough to die"- but that the construction foreman refused to build into Bisbee, which was a wide open mining town.  (The Copper Queen hotel in Bisbee had the best, repeat best, breakfast I have ever had anywhere in the world.  Period. End.)  The foreman alledgedly claimed that he felt Bisbee was too dangerous for his workers to be in. Another story about that line came out in American Heritage magazine a long time ago.  Just past the turn of the century (the 20th) Bisbee was a company mining town owned by Phelps-Dodge.  There is a huge open pit mine there that is a museum now, but back then copper was king in the Arizona territory.  The International Workers of the World attempted to establish a foothold in Bisbee.  Phelps-Dodge had zero tolerance for labor unions and promptly ordered the IWW out of town.  The Wobblies, and their families, about 110 people, were summarily bundled aboard a northbound freight train and banished from town.  They weren't released from the boxcars until the train reached Benson, and the townspeople in Benson had no idea what to do with them. Erik
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