Railway company boards Edwards' tracks Published July 27, 2015 By 412th Test Wing Public Affairs Staff writer EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- If you travelled through the North Gate recently, you may have seen a BNSF Railway locomotive coming on base. The engine was here to pick up a baretable train that was stored on base. The train was made up of 25 intermodal cars stretching 6,300 feet. BNSF Railway periodically uses Edwards AFB's tracks to store train cars when they are not in use. When they are picked up, the trainmaster will verify that each individual car's brakes can set and release properly prior to leaving. Until the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived in 1876, the desert was populated mostly by occasional prospectors drifting endlessly in pursuit of elusive mineral wealth. In 1882, Santa Fe Railroad ran a line westward out of Barstow toward Mojave and built a water stop at the edge of an immense dry lakebed, roughly 20 miles southeast of Mojave. The lonely water stop was known simply as "Rod," and the lakebed was then called Rodriguez Dry Lake. By the early 1900s, "Rodriguez" had been anglicized into "Rodgers," which was then shortened to "Rogers." In 1942 Muroc Dry Lake was selected as the location to test the Bell XP-59 jet airplane. Sometime after that, a portion of the Muroc Dry Lake north of the Santa Fe Railroad was designated for exclusive use of the Materiel Center personnel who had been directed to proceed to Muroc, California, to take charge of the "Materiel Center Flight Test Site." In September 1942, the XP-59A arrived to Murroc by rail, with a wooden propeller disguising its jet propulsion. The XP-59A's maiden flight was October 1, 1942. The Santa Fe Railroad tracks originally bisected Rogers Dry Lake, which limited the use of the dry lake as a landing field. In December 1951, an agreement was reached between railroad and government officials to move the track six miles north of the main base. This enabled the Air Force to take advantage of a 65 square-mile natural landing area. Until commercial trucking became more cost effective, certain supplies and fuel were railed in up until the mid-90s.