Hey isn’t this a former British rail 125 mph trainset? It sure looks like one.
Three type 43 power cars and 11 coaches were imported in November 2023 to work the service on line Z of the Tehuantepec Railway between Coatzacoalcos and Salina Cruz. I believe maximum speed on this line is100 km/h so I am not surprised that the trains are worked with single power cars rather than ‘top and tail’ as in HST service, with 5 or 6 cars in the trains. The map in the video indicates that the train pictured is on the Tabasco line, which runs southeast from Coatzacoalcos.
I note in the video that there are more than 11 cars connected to type 43s, so more equipment than Wikipedia notes appears to have been provided. There are new trains being built for the service.
There are also SD70Ms and at least one F59PH running around; I do not know if any of the shenanigans reported for the launch of the Tren Maya (which connects to line FA) occurred on the Tehuantepec services.
(Yes, those are ex-Constitution Liners, rebuilt SPV-2000s, that you see in this picture and in the video…)
An F59PH in Mexico???
My Moms from there and she never mentioned Passenger trains in Mexico…
@GabeTehGameh Mom never mentioned that even though she knows we both like railroading lol
Also credits to Gabe for getting me into trains it’s awesome getting to relate to people with similar/same interests
I’m a bit of a newbie to the forum but I’ll work my way around here with some help
Oh, Bobbie!? Welcome to the Forum, little bro! And yeah, I’m here to help with anything, just read up on topics too if you want while you’re here or make your own topics, all up to you dude!
Please note: BobTehGameh is my younger brother
The Interoceanico only opened like a year ago or so, with the HST, F59PHs, Amfleets, and SD70s in service there only recently purchased from various sources outside of Mexico. So, she probably never saw any.
I’m well aware of that it’s the fact that she never mentioned passenger railways is what I meant
These trains are very recent – a priority of the Obrador administration. For more, see Tren Maya (a service with which a line of the Tehuantepec railway connects).
I still think a serious ball was dropped when the Mexicans rejected a wide-gauge/multiple-track line across the Isthmus. A number of prospective technologies, including the RRollway, the ‘double-track train’ covered in Trains Magazine in the '70s, and the German Breitspurbahn, could have been used to produce throughput superior to Panamax.
In fact, one of the most attractive ‘bangs for the buck’ out of the Belt and Road initiative would be adaptive reuse of the Chinese viaduct-construction and TLM systems to facilitate construction of such a system at scale, combined with suitable parallel container-handling facilities at port locations. Fortunately the Mexican resolve to keep anything related to a Tehuantepec railway ‘Mexican-only’ (even if using American and British equipment to get things started) precludes some more-or-less-thinly-disguised Chinese government agency from causing the consternation that Hutchison Whampoa seems to have spawned in Panama.
My Sister-In-Law is from Mexico and takes my younger brother there often to visit relatives in the South. I was in to Mexico City (Palenco District) to help Walmart de Mexico with their IT systems about 10 years ago. The Volcano was erupting they had troops on the side streets as a quick reaction force near the hotel in duce and a halfs covered up with canvas in back so nobody would see them (as if I couldn’t spot them…heh-heh). Felt sorry for the troops, had to be hot in there. There was more violence back then. Nice country though the city was pretty clean in the areas I was. Though I remember a Rolls Royce dealership across from the W Hotel so I am betting it was the North Chicago like part of Mexico City. The Walmart employees took me around and I got to eat in a real Casita, saw the pyramids, they made me ride the public transit system (bus)…not sure what was up with that. Went to the amusement park as well there (heh-heh). Bought Chicken Tamales from a street vendor (they keep all day long which was surprising…thought they would spoil) They did take me into the ghetto areas as well as they wanted me to see good and bad vs all good of Mexico City…had a great time with them. Would love to go back to Mexico City, very safe and clean city.
Back on topic: Mexico is talking once again about a passenger train to Laredo, TX and they were at one point asking about US reciprocating with one from San Antonio to Laredo OR they wanted to go North to San Antonio to connect with Amtrak…forget which.
I think you must mean the Near North and Northside of Chicago. North Chicago, a far northern suburb, is not very nice.
Doesn’t Amtrak already run in Canada? I know Trump has an issue with Hispanics (I’m Hispanic and I’ve had to deal with I.C.E. 7 times this month, so I know what it’s like), but I don’t think the Trump Administration would be very fond of building track in Mexico to connect Amtrak with Texas (if Mexico decides to ask the U.S again if all the deportations stop if they continue there’s no way they will ask - at some point their alliance will fade out because of whats going on with Mexicans and Hispanics all over the U.S) but for now enough about politics.
Trump has an issue with illegal aliens.
It’s April 8 and you’ve had seven contacts with ICE this month? What are you doing?
OK well the border treatment issues predate Trump by decades. Though Trump probably amped it up quite a bit with his illegal aliens from South of the Border nonsense and 7 times in a month is a lot to be intercepted. I think in your case they are probably using facial recognition software with the video cameras and spotted you as a frequent border crosser first and then your ethnicity second. Not to go too far down this tangent as I will start smoking the keyboard again. “America First” you can Google that movement from prior to World War II. Same idealogy as today for the most part including the pretty awful nuances of the Lost Cause Movement. I wish it was only one political party with this issue but it’s both.
Yes Amtrak runs in Canada but only to Vancouver now. They are thinking seriously of restarting Chicago to Toronto again but I have only heard that from Bill Ford of the famous Ford Family in Detroit and only in dribs and drabs at various times. Really Bill Ford that wants the train. Have not heard it from Amtrak. U.S. Railroads have an issue crossing borders. I think it has to do with Union agreements. Not sure how they do it for Amtrak in Canada but I know here in Texas, CPKC had an issue with crossing a train across the border with a Mexican crew but I think they worked it out. Used to be an issue with Mexican Trucks crossing but they worked that out. So perhaps Amtrak might one day work it out and run South of the Border to Monterey, MX (which would be pretty cool).
The problem with Amtrak in Mexico isn’t dissimilar to the problem with CPKC running steam in Mexico over KCS de Mexico. A whole bunch of liability for what is likely an unsubsidizable lack of return.
I am not sure how popular a ‘split’ operation as essentially a two-seat ride changing trains would be. I do not remember the precise concerns (they were in several threads here) about switching Mexican equipment to a station in the United States or an Amtrak consist to Mexico (with some form of cross-platform transfer rather than having to shuttle or taxi across the border with luggage).
The days of through sleepers on a Sunshine Special through to Mexico City or further are almost certainly long gone. We have a startup company that wants to offer ‘private’ sleeper service, and perhaps they can establish enough joint-venture support, insurance, etc. to have a consist switched across the border – but making it Amtrak-compliant and maintaining it while in Mexico will be expen$I’ve even for normal levels of amenity and customer service.
Similar ideology in the 30s or as “Lost Cause” after the Civil War or the “No Nothing” Part earlier in the 19th century. Resentment against other ethnicities and recent immigrants is a sad part of actual US history.
Doesn’t Amtrak still run NY to Toronto and Montreal?
You would-be historians need to get your references cited better. The Know-Nothings were a comparatively brief if rather nasty development of the wrong kind of ‘nativism’, largely addressing the influx of poor Irish in that period and the not-unreasonable idea (now frequently mentioned about Muslims) that they would raise large families of undereducated voters swayed by their priests to the establishment of ‘that certain interpretation of religion’. (And the rise of machine politics certainly put some teeth in the argument for a while!)
The ‘organization’ you should have mentioned is the revived Klan, which rode veiled desire for extrajudicial nativism to a surprising popularity in the early to mid 1920s. This had nothing to do with the Nathan Bedford Forrest Klan except appeal to the burgeoning Lost Cause mythology enabled by what came after Plessey v. Ferguson.
One really ugly thing was the slamming of the Open Door for certain ethnic groups in 1924, which I’d argue has repercussions for our immigration policies even now. While I understand completely where much of the anti-Japanese rhetoric came from in the days after Pearl Harbor, one could argue that the ‘sanctioned’ measures to segregate Nisei went far beyond anything objective: not our finest hour in a number of respects.
Would-be historian indeed!
Nativism/racism is ugly no matter the target: blacks, Irish Germans, Chinese, Italians or Muslims.
Discerning a significant difference with the first KKK (banned as terrorists by Grant with a federal law) vs the 20th C variety seems silly, speaking diplomatically. I lived next to a member in Stone Mountain once He was moderate but very much a white supremacist and would fit in well with successor groups today