AT&SF 2926 at the Wheels Museum Route 66 100th Anniversary!

On April 19, 2026, the Wheels Museum located at the Rail Yards in Albuquerque, New Mexico held a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Route 66, an iconic 2400 mile highway connecting Chicago to Santa Monica California. It spans 8 states, including New Mexico. There were a number of exhibits including tractors, an Army recruiting display, and of course, the New Mexico Rail Runner. The MX 505 Miata club had a nice display featuring a 1992 Sunburst Yellow North America equipped with a rare factory-painted white hardtop. Only 1,519 Sunburst Yellow cars were produced for North America. Of course the star of the show is Achison Topeka and Santa Fe 2926. AT&SF 2926 is a historic 4-8-4 "Northern" type steam locomotive built in 1944. It is one of the world's largest operating steam locomotives, meticulously restored over 20 years by the New Mexico Heritage Rail group. It returned to operation in 2021. The Denver & Rio Grande Western caboose, along with another caboose and box car, located north of the Albuquerque train station near the Old Maloof Beer Distributorship, appears to have been a private storage or abandoned display site. One is a Rio Grande steel-sided caboose (likely a 1940s-1950s build), often found tagged and unattended. Sometimes things really go your way and when the New Mexico Rail Runner Express departed just as 2926 was passing by, we knew we had caught something special! https://wheelsmuseum.org/ https://www.riometro.org/395/New-Mexi... https://2926.us/