By Gary Nelson, Contributor, San Tan Sun News; September 24, 2020
A little before midnight on Sunday, Oct. 8, 1995, an Amtrak passenger train called the Sunset Limited pulled out of Phoenix under a full desert moon, heading west.
Its two locomotives pulled 12 cars. There were 268 souls on board, of whom 20 were Amtrak crew members. Earlier they had cruised through Mesa and Tempe, passing Sun Devil Stadium and crossing an arid riverbed that was still more than three years away from becoming Tempe Town Lake.