Mexico - Then and Now

Mr. Benton, that stainless Budd car is probably right on, as about 1/3 of the Budd cars originally built for the (ATSF) California Zephyr were sold to NofM in 1971.

Also note that at historicrail.com they have at least three books on the "Eagles" of the Missouri Pacific.

Woooops. What was I thinking? Or course the California Zephyr was a joint Burlington, Rio Grande and Western Pacific train, NOT atsf. Egg on my face again!

After its virtual extinction resulting from the "privatization" initiative and US investment conditioned in part upon "don't even THINK about a Mextrak", it appears that Mexico has visions of reinventing the passenger train.

From the Arizona Republic, a "brief passage":

• MEXICO CITY - High-speed bullet trains whooshing across the Mexican countryside. Electric commuter trains slicing through Mexico City. Gleaming new train stations and state-of-the-art switching systems.
  
  It's all part of an ambitious, multibillion-dollar plan to revive train travel in Mexico, a business that was mostly abandoned in 2001 after decades of mismanagement and long, uncomfortable journeys in aging rail cars.
  
  Now construction crews are tearing up streets along the weed-covered rails leading into Mexico City's crumbling Buenavista station, preparing the way for a new $5 billion commuter-rail system that officials are calling the Suburban Train. And the government is about to open bidding on a $12 billion, 180-mph "Tren Bala," or bullet train, the western hemisphere's first, that will run 360 miles between Mexico City and Guadalajara, the country' second-largest city..."

Here is the complete article:

http://www.azcentral.com/business/artic ... ain06.html

The under construction Mexico (City) rail commuter system, including use of the "palatial' Buenavista Station, will surely be an overnight success. Some of the other pipe dreams set forth.....well, consultants have to earn a living.

Was it possible in the pre/post war period to travel by train from anywhere in the US all the way to the Yucatan? Change train points and layover times? Were there ever any thru sleepers from a US/Mexican border city to the Yucatan?

Reviewing an August 1972 NdeM timetable, there was a through Sleeper from Mexico, DF to Merida, Yuc. offering "Alcobas, camas baja y camas altas; Coche comedor'.

That sounds like a heavyweight Sleeper with Sections and Bedrooms (8 sec 5BR was a configuration as I recall) and Diner to me. Trains 1-2 Aguilla Azteca operated from Nuevo Laredo to Mexico and offered lightweight cars including during that era an ex-NYC obs lounge. That train connected with Amtrak's "Inter-American" at Laredo.

If you have Cancun in mind, Merida was still some 150 "klicks' away. But then all there was of Cancun back then was a few fisherman's shanties and otherwise unspoiled beaches and mangrove trees (can't imagine ever going near the place, but I understand the vegetation is much the same as on a Caribbean island, where I have been).

Turn the clock back to, say, 1960, there was a St Louis-Mexico City Sleeper that actually was transferred occupied X the Border (whoops, Frontier down there). I wouldn't be thinking of that in today's "Bill O'Reilly/Sean Hannity charged" political environment.