Nostalgia & History > Tomorrow is Jesus Garcia Day in Mexico

Some years ago I had a vague recollection about a locomotive engineer who took a train with a carload of explosives that had caught on fire into the countryside outside of a town that would have been destroyed had he not done so. Someone on TO referred me to the story, and here it is.

Let us pause in our daily activities to remember Jesus Garcia. On Nov. 7, 1907, he was the engineer on the train that ran between Nacozari, Sonora and Douglas, Arizona. The train had stopped in Nacozari, and he observed that a car containing dynamite was on fire. Probably knowing that he would not see the sunset that day, Garcia started the train moving, and by the time the explosives detonated, was about four miles from Nacozari. There were casualties, but Garcia not taken swift action, the whole town might have been leveled, with hundreds of fatalities. As a side note, Jesus told his fireman to jump off, sparing his life (reminiscent of Casey Jones telling his fireman to bail out.)

According to Wikipedia, "Mexican railroad workers commemorate 7 November every year as the Dia del Ferrocarrilero."

Thank you so much for this story. 105th anniversary of this unselfish engineer's heroic act.

Mike

Well there's a whole new angle on "Jesus Saves". ;-)

Bill Miller
Galt, ON

And Bill wins the internet today

Garcia Station on the Tijuana y Tecate portion of
the San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railroad was named
for this engineer!
Mike

I never knew That...Very interesting!

DNRY122 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Some years ago I had a vague recollection about a
> locomotive engineer who took a train with a
> carload of explosives that had caught on fire into
> the countryside outside of a town that would have
> been destroyed had he not done so. Someone on TO
> referred me to the story, and here it is.
>
> Let us pause in our daily activities to remember
> Jesus Garcia. On Nov. 7, 1907, he was the
> engineer on the train that ran between Nacozari,
> Sonora and Douglas, Arizona. The train had
> stopped in Nacozari, and he observed that a car
> containing dynamite was on fire. Probably knowing
> that he would not see the sunset that day, Garcia
> started the train moving, and by the time the
> explosives detonated, was about four miles from
> Nacozari. There were casualties, but Garcia not
> taken swift action, the whole town might have been
> leveled, with hundreds of fatalities. As a side
> note, Jesus told his fireman to jump off, sparing
> his life (reminiscent of Casey Jones telling his
> fireman to bail out.)
>
> According to Wikipedia, "Mexican railroad workers
> commemorate 7 November every year as the Dia del
> Ferrocarrilero."

On November 7th, 1907, Jesus Garcia Corona was an engineer for the narrow gauge industrial railroad of the Moctezuma Copper Company of Nacozari in Sonora, not SP or Nacozari RR. The line went from the mine located at the end of the line in Pilares to downtown Nacozari on the Nacozari Railroad (standard gauge) which ran from Douglas/Agua Prieta to the end of the line in Nacozari.

Jesus Garcia had a train loaded with dynamite to be taken to the mine. The exhausting desert heat made the cars hot and fire was spotted on the cars, so he quickly ran full steam ahead with MCC No. 2, a little 0-6-0 to the mine, out of town. Before he could stop and jump, the train exploded and killed him at El Seis mine. He became a hero because the whole town would have blow up if he wouldn't have done anything. Since then each november 7 is the day of the railroader. The town became Nacozari de Garcia (of Garcia). The MCC narrow gauge is gone, the standard gauge fromer Nacozari branch now only reaches Pilares, where the new modern Copper smelter is located. The Douglas/Agua Prieta border crossing is gone, but a line thru Mexico from Cananea branch was built in the 60's.

There were many railroad heroes throughout Mexico, some of em are the 1940's brigade of Sanchez Islas, Torres Burciaga, Gustavo Sotelo and Lopez Collada who got lost in the Altar Desert in Sonora when their car exploded they had to walk with no water while building the Sonora-Baja California line from Benjamin Hill to Puerto Penasco, but that's another story...

A corrido (ballad) was composed of Jesus Garcia, It's called "Maquina 501" or Engine 501, the best version of it is from Charro Avitia (in my opinion) search it one YouTube... in reality it was number 2 but popular culture believe it's the 501 and many preserved steam locomotives in Mexico are numbered 501 as impostors...