When the El Paso and Northeastern Railroad reached Alamogordo in 1898, a new line was added to open logging areas in the Sacramento Mountains. Completed in 1900, the Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railway extended to Cloudcroft and into Russia Canyon. The railroad wound around steep mountain slopes for 32 miles on 58 major timber trestles and rose to an elevation of 8700 feet, the highest altitude in the world at that time for standard gauge railroads. Railroading on this corkscrew line was dangerous, and engines often ran wild down the steep grades, jumping tracks and plunging into canyons below. The railway also carried passengers, with Mountain Park as one of the original stations, and the logging camp at Cloudcroft became a mountain resort. During its half century of active use, the railway transformed the Sacramento Mountains from a frontier area into an organized forest district devoted to timber production, ranching, and tourism. As railroad transportation declined, the last scheduled train completed the trip down the mountain in 1947, and today New Mexico Highway 82 follows much of the former railroad grade.