Ride the Fantasy Rails: Sky Railway with George R.R. Martin

Journey back in time on George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones-inspired Western Fantasy train in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Darley Newman sits down with the mastermind himself at an old west saloon, The Legal Tender, in Lamy to delve into his creative inspiration. Join Darley to experience riding Sky Railway's adventure train and learn its history as you're immersed in food, live music and margaritas.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
If you've ever wanted to take a train ride back to the Wild West,

(00:04):
kind of like Michael J. Fox did in the movie Back to the Future 2,
you can in Santa Fe, New Mexico with the help of George R.R. Martin,
the fame creator of "Game of Thrones."
Fans of "Game of Thrones," history, or just slow train travel with captivating stories
in high desert scenery may want to take this immersive journey with me,

(00:24):
because we're riding Sky Railway back in time.
Plus, we're meeting George.
I'm Darley Newman and welcome to the Travels with Darley Podcast,
where we take you on location for adventure, culture, nature, and history,
and on this excursion, we're in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico.
All aboard.
Sky Railway operates along the scenic spur line between Santa Fe and the Old West Town of Lamy,

(00:54):
and it's not just a historic train ride, it's billed as an adventure train.
The train departs from Santa Fe's old Railyard.
Back in 1880, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company rolled their first train into this depot,
setting the sleepy frontier capital of Santa Fe up for a growth spurt.

(01:14):
In modern years, the Railyard has been revitalized
with gallery shops, restaurants, a cinema, and cool farmers market,
which in the fall, fills with the smoky sense of Chimayo chile peppers roasting in giant metal drums.
I arrived early and walked along the train tracks in my brown well-worn cowboy boots and jeans,

(01:34):
readying myself mentally for slow travel.
I stared up at the iconic water tower in the distance at the old Railyard
as I got closer to Sky Railway's train cars.
Intentionally emblazoned with spray-painted art featuring dragons and wolves in bright purple and gray,
they look slightly retro-magical to me, but I guess that's fitting,

(01:56):
seeing as George R.R. Martin, the creative mind behind the worldwide sensation "Game of Thrones",
co-owns and helped create this train experience.
All aboard! I stepped up to go inside one of the vintage train cars and was immediately handed a small clipboard
with a menu and golf course-sized pencil.

(02:16):
I glanced briefly at the listing of old fashion popcorn,
flavored with caramel or New Mexico chile, the locally brewed Santa Fe Brewing Company beers
and specialty cocktails, like the Dragon Margarita and Dire Wolf Bourbon Old Fashioned.
I decided on the Dragon Margarita with old fashioned popcorn.
The train started to leave the station and a docent and a green button downed shirt and

(02:39):
wide brimmed cowboy hat began to share what would be in store for us on the ride to the Old West Town of
Lamy, where I'd be meeting George R.R. Martin.
On the train you'll find live music, local food and drinks, and historians sharing their

(03:05):
knowledge related to different themes. It's a fun way to get a new spin on the Santa Fe area.
I was on the "Lore of the Land History Train." Sky Railway offers different themes like a night time
stargazing adventure, speakeasy express, and a murder mystery tour, even holiday-specific rides.
Mine would combine music with talks about history.

(03:34):
Musician Westin McDowell sat on a high stool catty-corner to me. Raised by local artists,
his mom was a Spanish dancer and father, a musician and poet, and Westin calls himself a gypsy,
and he sure does have gypsy soul. Wearing a brown-felt gambler hat, sunglasses, a mauve
blue and tan Hawaiian buttoned downed shirt, and salmon pink pants, he strummed an acoustic

(03:58):
guitar, quite at home playing for the audience, who somewhat listened and somewhat gazed outside,
or chatted with each other as the train rolled down the tracks.
I looked around at the retro train car, lined with brown wood paneling and a white ceiling
accented with round wooden sconces with the words "SKY." I rested my arm on a wooden armrest

(04:21):
carved in the shape of a long dragon. Like all good adventures, it's in the details.

As we moved out of the city, we passed adobe flat-roofed homes and trails where mountain bikers

(04:47):
and runners moved at a faster clip sometimes than our train. We left civilization meandering
alongside the Galisteo Basin. The vast open high desert spaces are dotted with juniper trees
and Pueblo ruins, and big sky. You can go outside while the train is moving to an open-air car

(05:08):
if you want to feel the big sky shining down on you. I did, and noticed that's where the scenery
really started to change. Coming out of Santa Fe now, and the scenery starting to change here.
Got the beautiful Sangre de Cristo mountains in the distance, and not as many houses,
not as much development, just a little single track trail with some bikers going by.

(05:29):
Kind of feeling like we're riding back in time now.
Lamy is about 18 miles from the city of Santa Fe, but can take up to an hour on this train.
We rolled into the Lamy Depot where normally travelers rest a beat before heading back
to Santa Fe on Sky Railway, but I had something else in store. I hopped from the steps of the train

(05:52):
onto the dusty, unpaved lots surrounding the Lamy Depot, walking past a sign for Nuckolls
on an old one-story building, bricks showing through in places where sand-colored stucco had worn off.
Nuckolls was originally a meat-packing outpost, and later served as a headquarters for the
Santa Fe Southern Railway. I crossed a paved road and headed towards the Legal Tender,

(06:14):
an old saloon dating back to 1881, which now operates as a restaurant and modern saloon.
The white facade of this one-story flat-roof building listed on the National Register of Historic
Places is accented with an aqua-blue trim with potted pink flowers and red chile ristras hanging
along the porch ceiling. Pods of dried red chile strung together. Ristras are hung throughout

(06:39):
New Mexico both for practical purposes and decoration. They are a symbol of welcome.
I've interviewed a lot of people in the over decade and a half that I've been filming around the
world for my PBS travel series. Everyone from Her Royal Highness Princess Alia of Jordan,
to Ambassadors, sports celebrities, and star chefs. And I was excited, but a little nervous to

(07:02):
meet George, as I entered Legal Tender. Muted colored cream and brown walls are filled with
historic postcards, art featuring horses and history in lavish golden frames,
and the occasional old-fashioned sign or taxidermy goose. The main entrance room is home to a long dark
wooden bar lined with gold-framed antique mirrors. Patrons were drinking whiskeys and beer in high

(07:28):
backed wooden stools with red fabric seats. I looked down as I crossed that big black and white
checkerboard floor that you see in so many historic venues and rounded the corner into a dark wood
floored room to see George, seated at a round wooden dining table with two of his business colleagues.
He was wearing a black button-down shirt and suspenders decorated with skull and crossbones,

(07:52):
silver wire rim glasses, and his signature black fisherman's cap with a silver and turquoise turtle
pinned front and center. As my small production team set up lights, I chit chatted with George about life
in New York City and his childhood in New Jersey and heard the backstory of the Santa Fe Southern Railway.
It had begun to flounder back in 2012. Over a few drinks in Santa Fe, a plan was hatched

(08:17):
by George and Bill Banowsky, the owner of Violet Crown Cinemas and a filmmaker to save the over 140
year old railroad. George and I moved over to our lit set in the main bar area. We were seated at a
round dining room table for our formal talk, which began with my interview icebreaker.
Yeah, it's margaritas. margaritas are so responsible for us owning this railroad. We were over at

(08:49):
Bill Banowsky's place and he had a picture of margaritas and he was discussing all of his plans
for the Nuckolls Brewery and his coffee shop and his theater, all of them in the rail yard and I
said, "Well, there's one other thing that's in the rail yard that we should consider too.
What about the railroad has been somewhat defunct for a long time." And the more margaritas we drank, the more

(09:14):
that seemed like a really good idea. And we do have great margaritas.
It was a long road and there were times I didn't think it would happen. The Santa Fe

(09:37):
Southern Railroad, as it was known before it became Sky Railway, had a long history. The
Atchison, Topeka & the Santa Fe, one of the most famous railroad lines in the history of America,
never went to Santa Fe. That's an oxymoron. They came out of Kansas and they went into Colorado and the the entire south

(10:01):
they came to the Rayton Pass. And by the way they had to fight for that with a rival railroad,
the Denver and the Rio Grande. So there's some exciting stories about these two railroads
Shooting at each other and carrying up each other's track and all that. But Atchison, Topeka &
Santa Fe made it and they came all the way down and they started curving and they hit

(10:22):
Lamy, which is the town we're sitting in right now. And for many years, you know, passengers on what was
called the Santa Fe Railroad, even though the Santa Fe would get off at Lamy, switched to the
rail line and go off. But years pass, decades pass, planes were invented, railroads lost their
dominance, especially passenger service. When Amtrak took over, then it became Amtrak passengers

(10:48):
getting off. But there were less and less of that as time went by. So the Santa Fe Southern under
a number of different owners said, well, we'll just keep up the freight service and the passenger service.
We have to be more of a tourist railroad. But when we look back on it, we said, you know,
we have to go above and beyond the ordinary tourist railroad. We have to make this more of an entertainment menu.

(11:15):


We repaired the cars and then we repainted the cars and we went for a wolf and dragon motif.

(11:47):
We hired a local Santa Fe artist who's one of the world's great graffiti artists to paint the
trains in these colorful patterns with stars and clouds and and you know, wolf and dragon things
for the locomotives. That was kind of revolutionary because a lot of trains all around the country
are graffiti, but not without the old permission. Normally they want to chase the graffiti guys away.

(12:12):
We brought them in instead. And I think we got trains that are work of art and are not like anyone
else in the country. And then we started planning something special for every train rise. I mean,
we have the Sunset Serenade trains, History and Lore trains where a docent will tell you the history
of what you're passing. If you take the train all the way from Lamy and you take the train down,

(12:35):
you go to the Legal Tender where we're sitting, which is an amazing historic bar and old Harvey House
and you take the train back or you can take one of the shorter runs that just takes a couple hours.
It has our railroad stop, which is very historic, and then right across from the railroad tracks, there's this

(13:11):
Legal Tender, which is an amazing historic bar and old Harvey House.
I grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey and we didn't have that much money. My father was a longshoreman,
and ultimately, but he was also went through years where he was unemployed and so forth.

(13:36):
So we lived in a federal housing project. Like every kid of the era of the 50s, I wanted some
trains first. I wanted a line of trains. I had, however, a friend, their family obviously had more money,
an entire basement was a train set. But I guess I, from my childhood, I had train envy.

(13:57):
So then when you buy a railroad, hey, I'm finally ahead.

We have been part of Santa Fe for a long time, but, you know,

(14:20):
century and a half, but we hope to continue to be part of Santa Fe for another century and a half.
I already suggested that, a Karaoke Train.
Do you sing Karaoke?


(14:47):

I'm hoping to go back to Santa Fe to ride Sky Railway's Karaoke Train, or maybe get a fright on Halloween.
It just goes to show that sometimes thinking outside of the box can lead to impactful things,
like saving a historic train, or enlisting locals to share their creativity, too.

(15:08):
It's one of the reasons why I love travel, to open your mind and heart to something new.
Sometimes it only takes a few moments of listening, to a person, or the sounds of a train whistle,
or a margarita being mixed, or something altogether different.
Because when we take the time to pause, connectivity can create change,

(15:30):
and that's something beautiful I've found in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Thanks for joining me on a train ride back in time, with a spin to modern times, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Listen for my other Santa Fe podcast, and more adventures across the USA and around the world
on "Travels With Darley", the podcast.

(15:52):
It takes you on location, and far beyond.
I'm Darley Newman, and I appreciate you.