The Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railroad climbed 26 miles and 4,000 feet into the mountains, giving passengers spectacular vistas and exhilarating crossings over wooden trestles, and earned the name "the cloud-climbing route" because at that altitude trains often passed through the clouds. Devised by Charles Eddy to harvest timber from the Sacramento Mountains, the line required numerous structures and track modifications to cross canyons and steep grades on the way to Cloudcroft, including an average 5.2 percent grade, 122 wooden box bridges, 58 timber frame trestles, about 330 curves, and a switchback down the canyon from this point that forced trains to travel in reverse for part of the route. Such steep travel was unusual for a standard-gauge railroad and demanded extreme caution from railroad workers, yet wrecks were common because of heavy loads, slippery tracks, and weather that could wash out entire sections of railway, causing injuries and loss of equipment. Since the railway closed in 1947, the A&SMR trestles have decayed, though efforts have recently been made to restore the Mexican Canyon Trestle, the tallest trestle on the route from Alamogordo to Cloudcroft. Built in 1899, it is 323 feet long and 60 feet high at its highest point above the canyon, and all of its original timbers, including 12 by 12 posts, were cut from local Douglas-fir.