Overhaul: Spatial Renovation and Settler Maintenance in the Albuquerque Rail Trail

In November of 2021, the City of Albuquerque broke ground on the Albuquerque Rail Trail—a pedestrian and cycling path along the railroad corridor that would follow a popular rail-to-trail retrofit trend. Aiming to change the landscape of Downtown and catalyze 590 million in redevelopment, the Rail Trail quite literally builds on landscapes of mobility undergirding previous developmental waves. Subtending former El Camino Real, AT&SF Railway, and Route 66 pathways, the Rail Trail is—in its own terms—the “next expression” of these “vital” tracks. Taking seriously the project’s notion of vitality, this paper explores a locomotive maintenance procedure called “overhaul” as a framework for parsing the forms of disassembly and reassembly that have propelled mobility-based development in Albuquerque. With particular attention to shifting property relations and gentrification pressures, this essay traces the mechanisms of dispossession that undergird the City’s effort to brand its placeness.