Steam & Excursion > Down Mexico Way

January 1, 1958 found the late John Hungerford and Don Duke exploring the FC de Nacozari RR. The FC de Nacozari was built in 1902 by the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad and ran south from Douglas, Arizona, 77 miles to the Mexican town of Nacozari de Garcia in the state of Sonora Mexico where it connected with The Nacozari Railroad, owned by the Moctezuma Copper Company. The Narcozari RR transported ore to the Moctezuma smelter at Nacozari. Phelps, Dodge Corporation had recently acquired the Moctezma Copper Company and the FC de Narozari was subsequently incorporated into the El Paso and Southwestern.

The El Paso and Southwestern Railroad was purchased from Phelps, Dodge and merged into the Southern Pacific in 1955; the Texas subsidiary remained until 1961.

We start with SP, ne EP&SW Consolidation 3406 in charge of train number two on the U.S side of the border waiting for Mexican customs to open the gate. Photo two shows a Jeep station wagon hi-railer at Fronteras, 33 miles south of Douglas, Arizona. With photo three I am going to hazard a guess based on sun angles and Google maps that this was a two day trip as the locomotive number boards now carry a number 1, and the view is looking south towards Nacozari. The last photo was appears to have been taken near the station at Esqueda. While the town has modernized, a half century later the Las Palmares bar is still in business! Note the position of the station directly below the "Street View Man" in the map view in the corner of the of the Google image.

Photos from the Tom Moungovan collection.

Cheers,
Jack



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/10 21:14 by africansteam.

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Last two.

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Hello

Great Stuff!!!!!

Chris

Wow!!! Awesome pix! I just love & miss the old days!

Really nice! There isn't much color photography from the Nacozari/Pacifico from that era.
These shots are a treasure for fans of Mexican Railroads.

The photo 2 location still looks the same today.

thats a willys wagon i have a 55 willys pick up

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Fantastic! I assume the rails are long gone. I'll have to explore this area when it cools off a bit. Thanks for sharing.

Rob
Panama City, FL (10 more days!)

redneck4449 Wrote:
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> thats a willys wagon i have a 55 willys pick up


Your pickup is in photo number 4, but someone blew it's doors off! As an old fart I still think of them as Jeep pickups and wagons.;>)

Cheers,
Jack



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/10 21:51 by africansteam.

In a word, outstanding!

#3 is my desktop now. Fantastic photos of days gone pass.

Awesome! I think EP&SW photos from Benson to Douglas are rare, too.

On the Mexican side, the line from from Cananea to Agua Prieta was built, this may have been a big knockout to the EP&SW from the Douglas connection, except for the on-line customers like Bisbee and Paul Spur, Douglas was last served in the early 90's by SP, I think, so when was the Douglas-MX border line severed? I should've been in the 70's? because the Mexican government inaugurated a new line from Naco, Sonora to Agua Prieta, Sonora in November 7th, 1967 (appropiately).

On the other hand, in Agua Prieta, all tracks are still there from the border into north of Nacozari where a spur was built into the town of El Tajo to the new Mexicana de Cobre concentrator, inaugurated in 1986, it uses a couple of ex-Santa Fe CF7's as swithcers in it's loop. The last segment to Nacozari was abandoned in the late 80's or so and tracks were removed in early 90's. The line from Agua Prieta border wall to the new line connection is used as a spur for car storage.

The Naco-Naco border crossing was also severed in ???, but tracks in the Mexican segment all the way to the border wall are still in place (but unused).

This leaves us Nogales-Nogales as the closest and only border crossing, and the Nogales,Sonora - El Tajo,Sonora line still sees several Ferromex freights today.

Bet that dance hall next to the bar was a hot spot on weekends.

Didn't somebody run some Nacozari trips back in the 80's? I seem to regret not having gone, probably diesel by then.

OliveHeights Wrote:
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> Didn't somebody run some Nacozari trips back in
> the 80's? I seem to regret not having gone,
> probably diesel by then.

Yes, diesel.

In fact isn't there one on one of the Pentrex Mexico series videos??

CPRR Wrote:
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> #3 is my desktop now. Fantastic photos of days
> gone pass.

Agree, #3 is pretty nice !! Great location :)

Mike