Williams Junction (located just east of Williams, Arizona) marks the eastern end of the Santa Fe's Crookton Cutoff, which eliminated numerous steep grades and sharp curves between Wiolliams Junction and Crookton, Arizona. Here looking east we see a westbound freight about to start the descending grade which will take it over "the racetrack" to Crookton.
After the Cutoff was completed in 1961, passenger trains no longer passed through downtown Williams, and so a small station (no longer extant) at about the location of the lead locomotive served as a transfer point for passengers taking the Grand Canyon branch. The station was demolished in the early seventies following discontinuance of Santa Fe passenger service to the Canyon.
