In 1907, the Belen Cutoff for the Santa Fe Railway was completed, connecting Amarillo with Belen. Prior to the Belen Cutoff, trains used the steep Raton Pass on the Colorado and New Mexico border. The cutoff made it possible for many more trains to travel east and west across the United States. Facilities at Belen included a large roundhouse and a classification yard, serving also branches southward to El Paso and northward through Albuquerque to Colorado. Today, Belen remains a major refueling station for BNSF Railway, where an average of 110 trains travel through Belen in a 24-hour period on the Southern Transcon.