International Railroad Discussion > NPR report on "The Beast"

Illegal mixed trains heading to the US. No passenger cars but there are riders.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/06/05/318905712/riding-the-beast-across-mexico-to-the-u-s-border

Sneebly

Of course liberal leaning NPR calls them "undocumented!" Why is it so hard to call those who enter our country illegally what they are..."ILLEGAL." But blame should be placed on the railway who allows this...not those who ride.

Let the thread skew begin.
...Lorenzo

Trying to keep this on the narrow, nerdy subject of railroading:

I assume this is not a single train, originating on Mexico's southern border and heading directly to the US. Presumably, this is just an uninformed reporter's description of loose-car railroading, with classification en route, correct?

Anybody know how and where the classification work gets done? That yard must have one hell of a hobo jungle nearby. Any chance of interdiction at that point, assuming cooperation from local authorities?

How does an 8 year old kid know which outbound train to get on? Or which car in the train is going all the way north? For that matter, how do adults figure that out? Presumably, if you randomly hop on a hopper car (bad pun there, sorry) you will end up on a domestic journey most of the time.

Humanitarian concerns (and border security concerns) aside, I'd really like to know more about how this business works. And we can trust our sensationalist media folks to not tell us.

I was not able to catch the PBS special, even tho I watch a lot of PBS programs. It doesn't make any difference what you call them; they a children and women escaping a horrible situation. Time Magazine says most come with notes and names of relatives that are already in the USA, and IF they get across the border they do not hide and hope to be found by the border patrol who them turn them over to church related agencies that then try to help them in many ways.

But my real question is what rail route to they use to get here? The previous post is very right. Presumably 'The Beast' originates near Zapata, TA. TIME says that most of these folks are crossing the border into south Texas between McAllen and Brownsville, because it is geographically closest to Hondouras. But there is no direct rail route between Zapata and Matamoros, opposite Brownsville. The only thru rail route is through Mexico City. Which meanns the cars have to be interchanged between the SRS railway in the Southeast to FXE and or KCSM; my maps are not that clear. And the route will climb from near sea level to over 7000 feet to get to Mexico City. and it is hard for me to believe that KCSM and FXE with their strong alliance with USA railroads and safety culture would tolerate people openly riding rail cars, esp. women and children. Maybe 'The Beast' only runs as far as Veracruz and there is some overland highway arrangement to get to the Mex-Tex border.