I posted this earlier in another forum, but since a lot of the regulars here don’t frequent there I thought I’d post it here too. By the way, the event was held in Cuautla, Morelos. This is about two hours south of Mexico City, and about a 10 hour drive from where I live. This line, the old Interoceanic Railroad (FCI), dates back to about 1881.
There’s only one remaining narrow gauge steam loco in operating condition in Mexico. Some twenty plus years ago it reportedly almost got sold to the D&S, but a local group managed to save it. They recently started to stage small events with the loco, although they only have a very short stretch of track available to run on. They’re trying to work their way through the red tape involved in recovering and reconditioning more right of way.
We went down for the event last Saturday. By pure dumb luck I happened to run into a young guy who was one of the more active members of the group that is responsible for the loco. He gave us a personal tour the night before the event and invited us to be present at the engine shed when they started to warm up the loco the following morning.
Here’s a shot of #279, built by Baldwin back in 1904. It’s an inside frame 2-8-0. Originally built as an oil burner, it was converted to burn diesel in an overhaul back in 1989.
They started running a little after 2 p.m., and the last run went off at about 8 p.m. Every run was full or near full. While the ride was only 5-8 minutes long, it didn’t seem to matter to the people who came. I made a rough calc that more than 1,600 people rode the train that afternoon (+/- 20 runs x +/- 80 passengers per run). Only a small percentage were railfans (it was easy to spot the foamers). The vast majority were people from the town, teenagers, parents with kids, oldsters, groups of students with their teachers, etc. They kept coming and lining up all afternoon. It was