Pinta South Siding

Towards the end of D-251 on the 2nd District, the sidings at Pinta and Houck were about the only sidings used with any frequency to get one train around another. Hibbard was too close to Winslow to be of much use. The dispatcher would usually run-around westward trains at Winslow, and would hold slow drags at Winslow to get the hotter eastward trains out first. Holbrook was also too close to Winslow, and besides, the siding was in a populated area were trains might be susceptible to local pranks, and the sidings were often full of cars for the Apache. Adamana's sidings were often plugged with LPG cars for the gas plant. That left Pinta, and to a lesser extent Houck, as the only remaining siding to make efficient run-arounds. The other sidings, Cheto and Lupton, were both ill-suited for the task since they both had hand-throw switches for the leaving switch. The others, Arntz, Navajo and Chambers, had been eliminated entirely.

At Pinta it wasn't uncommon to see a freight sitting in the hole at about the time of Amtrak, and it also wasn't uncommon to see a freight get stabbed by 6 or 7 shooters. The south siding at Pinta supported a derail, which is visible in the front of the photo. The derail would be permanently unlocked during normal operations and would be locked only if a train was stored in the siding. The green signals visible in the background from right to left are 2211, 2231 and 2251