Breaking Bad

31. The Santa Fe Rail Trail

Albuquerque, NM

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This is the site of a major turning point in the show; it signals Jesse’s complete turning away from Walt. In Season 5 Walt, Jesse and Mike, in their never-ending quest for the crucial meth cooking ingredient methylamine, plot to discreetly knock off a train carrying the coveted substance. With the help of Todd Alquist and Pat Kuby, the latter who parks a truck on the tracks to hold up the train, the plan seemingly goes off without a hitch until an unknowing do-gooder helps Pat off the tracks. While this makes for a tense moment where Jesse has to lie beneath the moving train, the train moves on and the caper is successfully completed. Until they notice a small boy, Drew Sharp, who has apparently witnessed the whole thing. Drew waves and Todd waves back before shooting him. This is the last straw for Jesse, whose allegiance to Walt begins to wane. The location for the train heist is outside of Santa Fe is the same location where Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid jump from a passenger train in the 1969 film. But there is a lot of trivia that goes along with the heist scene in the episode “Dead Freight.” The long running Jesse James references are completed when Jesse remarks that robbing the train will be just like “Jesse James.” Earlier in the episode Hank remarks that he has the film Heat on Blu-ray, a film that begins with a senseless killing much like Todd’s murder of Drew Sharp. For those of you wondering, Aaron Paul didn’t really lie underneath a moving train, this shot was done with special effects. The episode was originally supposed to be called “Black Territory” a nod to a film Jonathan Banks (Mike) was in where he plays a very similar character. While the writers seemed to have had a lot of fun with this episode, the crew remarked that it was tough to film. Photo Credit: rhysfunk.wordpress.com