I said all this on the Sunset Limited / Texas Eagle thread, but I am repeating it here as this is really the most logical place for this sort of information.
I found a piece of a 2004 UP Employee Timetable for this area. Follows is some information from it:
Summary: total length of Phoenix Line, 209.0 miles long, 71.7 miles out of service, over 100 miles with speed limits of 25 mph or less, meaning that, as is less than 40 miles can be operated at reasonable speeds. Massive rebuild effort required. Would suspect that condition of line today is no better than and probably worse than it was in 2004.
For Phoenix to the west, that distance is 135.3 miles, of which 71.7 miles, 53% of the total length, is out of service and none of which allows more than 25 mph. Suspect that the total out of service length may be more now than it was in 2004.
The lines are mileposted from West to East. Mileposts for passenger stations are not given. I have put in my best guess and labeled them as such. Here they are, beginning at Yuma and going east. Appears that the mileposting given for Yuma may be the passenger station.
732.7 Yuma
770.7 shown as beginning milepost of Phoenix Line
770.8 Wellton, with reduction of 0.6 miles due to milepost equations, 37.5 miles
896.0 Maricopa west end siding. With reduction of 0.4 miles due to MP equations, 124.8 miles fm Wellton
897.7 Maricopa east end siding. Station likely in this distance somewhere
936.7 Picacho west end siding - junction somewhere in this siding?? 39.0 miles between adjacent siding ends
938.4 Picacho east end siding
984.5 Tucson Station - approximate. Yard milepost 986.6
987.7 Gila Subdivision / Lordsburg Subdivision transition
1296.0 El Paso "Civic Center" Maybe Station Location? With reduction of 2.4 miles due to MP equations, 309.1 miles between stations Tucson to El Paso.
Speed limits are 79 passenger, 65 freight, 70 expedited freight, but with numerous speed restrictions of 70 mph to 55 mph, and some for less.
Now for the Phoenix Line:
770.7 Wellton - beginning portion shown designated as Roll Industrial Lead - ABS in service, but 20 mph, disregard signals.
771.0 derail
777.0 derail
782.3 end of in-service track - begin out of service track, next 20.5 miles out of service, but still in TT.
802.8 end of Roll Lead, begin Phoenix Line Main Track - next 51.2 miles out of service. Total 71.7 miles OOS
854.0 begin in-service track - 25 mph speed limit (unless reduced by slow orders which is likely.)
904.8 end 25 mph limit, begin 20 mph limit.
906.0 Phoenix Station - maybe - in 15 mph speed limit section.
907.0 Phoenix Yard
924.2 End low speed section with speed limits of 20 mph to 40 mph. - Except for four lower speed zones, speed limit is 60 mph the rest of the way to Picacho
979.7 Picacho - junction with main line, 25 mph turnout, no equation with main line milepost given. Likely to be 937.0.
Summary: Phoenix Line west of Phoenix, 209.0 miles long, 71.7 miles out of service, 137.3 miles with speed limits of 25 mph or less. Massive rebuild effort required. Would suspect that condition of line today is no better now and probably worse than it was in 2004.
Note that going through Phoenix is 43 miles longer than the line via Maricopa. That difference make the choice of route for freight obvious. While talking about the line west of Phoenix being out of service, is should not be forgotten that the line east of Phoenix is now effectively a stub end branch line, so that it also likely is no longer being kept to main line standards for high speed freight. Therefore, we are not talking about upgrading only the line west, but the entire line. The difference between them would be amount of work required. For the west line, 136 miles, with 2.5 mile sidings at about 15 mile intervals, which would be nine sidings, that would be 159 track-miles of rail, plus 420,000 ties, assuming concrete ties at 24 inch centers, plus 18 turnouts for sidings, plus 3 high speed turnouts at Wellton for the junction. I leave the cost guessing to others. For the east line, 75 miles, it would seem reasonable to again consider 100% new rail for the main track, but say we could reuse rails from the existing main track for the sidings. Here we would be looking at 75 track miles of new rail, and say about 50% new ties, which would be about 100,000 new ties, plus 10 turnouts for the sidings. (I think we should be considering higher speed turnouts and lengthening of sidings, as well.) What should be done in the way of station tracks at Phoenix, is for another time. Again, I leave the cost guessing to others.