I just returned from a mission trip to Rio Bravo, Mexico, with my youth group. It was a great experince, and we built two houses for needy people. I got to see the TFM in action there in Rio Bravo. It runs pretty straight, and all of the spurs stay parallel to the main making ideal for a shelf layout[8D]. I only saw locals, but judging from the wistles I heard all day, i would say it gets a decent amount of traffic. it has a big grain elevator right there in the middle of town, and one train spent alot of times shifting cars there. Yet another place I want to model…if only I had more space…more time…more money [:D][:D][:D][:D]
Alex, Welcome back from your trip. If you have specific questions regarding TFM operations you might want to try the MexList forum, which deals with railroading in Mexico. The link to their forum is;
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/MEXLIST/
They have a lot of general info on Mexican railroads on their main website which is:
http://www.mexlist.com/welcome.htm
Regards
Ed
I am not up to mexican railways, but I know the NdeM picked up some old steam during the days of retiring/scrapping steam, they picked up some NKP 2-8-2’s, so if you do steam, I believe the Athearn 2-8-2 would be perfect, perhaps some detail changes, I believe they gave them larger headlights.