Anywhere we go, we like to look for unique places to watch and photograph railroad activity. Last year, we accidentally found a spot in the Mojave Desert that was super busy with BNSF traffic. As I was putting plans together for this trip, I pulled up a map and followed that route east to see what parts of Arizona it crossed through. I saw that it paralleled our journey between Flagstaff and Petrified Forest National Park (it actually goes through the middle of that park). One spot that particularly caught my interest was where the line crossed Canyon Diablo, just east of Flagstaff.
During the planning stages of our trip, research turned up the fact that a high-clearance vehicle would be required to get to this area. I shoved the idea of visiting this spot to the back burner, and only came back to it after we had made the reservation to rent a Jeep for the week (I was planning on an intermediate car rental, but the Jeep was the same daily rate, so how could I not?).
I did not need four wheel drive at all for this trip, but I was glad to have the ground clearance. I would not recommend traveling this road with any vehicle that has less ground clearance than a typical small SUV.
According to some very quick research, Canyon Diablo is also a ghost town that has a relatively short but very colorful history. There are some ruins of structures on the north side of the tracks, but we did not see any of them while we were here, due to the train parked in a siding for the duration of of visit.
