{"id":7305,"date":"2021-11-20T16:45:44","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T23:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/?p=7305"},"modified":"2021-11-21T17:33:42","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T00:33:42","slug":"opening-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/2021\/11\/20\/opening-the-sky\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening the Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 3, right here in New Mexico, we will be opening the Sky between Santa Fe and Lamy.<\/p>\n

Sky Railway, to be precise.<\/p>\n

That’s the new name of the old Santa Fe Southern, the historic short-haul railroad originally build by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe back in the nineteenth century.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Largely moribund since 2012, the railway was acquired in 2020 by a group that included me, Bill Banowsky (founder of Magnolia Films and Violet Crown Cinemas), bestselling mystery author Douglas Preston, and five other prominent Santa Feans\u00a0 (Margaritas may have\u00a0 had something to do with our decision).\u00a0\u00a0 We’ve been busy ever since restoring and refurbishing the cars, repairing the tracks and tressels, replacing old seats, fixing broken windows,\u00a0 even installing a new engine into one of our old locomotives.\u00a0\u00a0 All of which took longer and cost more than we had originally anticipated… but hey, that’s pretty much always the case.<\/p>\n

(I almost titled this post “I’ve been working on the railroad,” but\u00a0 my readers would have taken that the wrong way… and, anyway, it isn’t true.\u00a0\u00a0 I am one of the owners.\u00a0\u00a0 Mostly what I have been doing is throwing out\u00a0 ideas and writing checks.\u00a0\u00a0 Sky’s employees, an energetic and enthusiastic crew, have been doing the work, all those things I mentioned up above and lots more besides.\u00a0\u00a0 I have not driven a single spike, laid a single rail, reupholstered a seat, crawled under a coach to check the wheels, and I won’t be selling tickets or driving the trains either… though I do reserve the right to blow the whistle now and again.\u00a0\u00a0 Nor have I been in the kitchen with Dinah.\u00a0\u00a0 I have <\/em>working, yes, yes… but not on the railroad.\u00a0\u00a0 I have been writing WINDS OF WINTER, editing three new Wild Cards books, sitting down with some amazing screenwriters and showrunners to create three hundred and seventeen new GAME OF THRONES successor shows for HBO and HBO Max,\u00a0 and serving as executive producer on various other television and film projects in various stages of development, including DARK WINDS for AMC, JOKERTOWN for Peacock, ROADMARKS and WHO FEARS DEATH for HBO.\u00a0 Oh, and I was the executive producer on our (recently wrapped) short film of Howard Waldrop’s NIGHT OF THE COOTERS.\u00a0\u00a0 So I have been working.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe too bloody hard, but that’s another tale for another blog post… though these days even finding the time to blog is hard).<\/p>\n

But I digress.\u00a0\u00a0 Let us get… ahem… back on track.<\/p>\n

Santa Fe is the City Different, and we wanted Sky, the reborn Santa Fe Southern, to be the Railway Different.\u00a0\u00a0 We had two big old diesel locomotives, so right off we decided we would run two trains:\u00a0 the Wolf and the Dragon.\u00a0\u00a0 And to paint them, and give each its own character and a look unlike any other train in the country, we hired Santa Fe’s own JORAEL NUMINA, an amazingly gifted muralist and graffiti artist. \u00a0 You can check out Joerael’s own website at \u00a0 https:\/\/www.joerael.com\/ <\/a>He’s been climbing all over our trains for the best part of the last year, and we think he’s produced something extraordinary.<\/p>\n

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Our swanky new paint job is not the only thing that will set Sky Railway apart, however.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s eighteen miles from Santa Fe to Lamy, a distance that we will cover in, oh, about an hour and a quarter at our blazing speed of fifteen miles an hour.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s nice ride, and our passengers can just buy a ticket and look out the windows at the passing scenery… pretty much the way it was on the old Santa Fe Southern, and every other tourist railroad in the country, give or take a few.\u00a0\u00a0 We’re planning to offer more than that, however.\u00a0\u00a0 We’re planning murder and mayhem on some of our trains, and unless Hercule Poirot buys a ticket, the passengers will have to solve the mysteries themselves.\u00a0\u00a0 Some of our trains may well be robbed; there are gangs of outlaws down by Lamy.\u00a0 Expect ghosts and zombies next Halloween, and maybe even a hanging.\u00a0\u00a0 We will have jazz trains, country music trains, cocktail trains (we will offer our own unique cocktails), costume trains, circus trains….\u00a0\u00a0 There may be pirates.\u00a0 There may be gunslingers.\u00a0\u00a0 There may be… most anything.\u00a0 Especially if Exodus Ensemble is involved.\u00a0\u00a0 Which they will be.\u00a0\u00a0 https:\/\/www.exodusensemble.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Most of that will be coming next year.\u00a0\u00a0 This year, well, Christmas is on hand, and Sky is building a Christmas Village for the kids down in Lamy.\u00a0\u00a0 Most of our trains will leave from there, at least through Christmas.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There will be hot chocolate and bells.\u00a0\u00a0 Santa Claus will be on hand, and maybe his friend Pablito the Purple Dragon.\u00a0\u00a0 The trains start running DECEMBER 3.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

To keep track of all we’re doing, check out Sky’s new website at:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/dev.skyrailway.com<\/a><\/p>\n

And, yes… tickets are now on sale.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Write it down.\u00a0\u00a0 DECEMBER 3.\u00a0\u00a0 The Wolf will howl.\u00a0\u00a0 The Dragon will roar.<\/p>\n

Ride the Sky.\u00a0\u00a0 Santa Fe’s adventure train.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On December 3, right here in New Mexico, we will be opening the Sky between Santa Fe and Lamy. Sky Railway, to be precise. That’s the new name of the old Santa Fe Southern, the historic short-haul railroad originally build by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe back in the nineteenth century.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Largely moribund since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[45,311],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7305"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7328,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7305\/revisions\/7328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}