International Railroad Discussion > BdeC FM's when in regular service

I'm surprised no TO members thus far seem to have little info on this operation. I, along with Matt Herson and Jim Herold were the first fans to locate and photograph this operatiom, as far as I know.
In 1974 we made a month long trip through Mexico. On the second to last day I got those guys to go to the BdeC offices in Chihauhua to find out where this operation was and get permission to go there.
The manager gave us rough directions and a letter, but when he found out we were driviing a rental Rambler he laughed and said we wouldn't make it over the rocky back roads. We almost didn't.
There were no road signs, but at one split in the dirt road a guy was hitchhiking. He was on his way to Mesa del Huracan, the mill site. After getting there the second in command spoke perfect English.
He took us out to the edge of the plant to watch the train come in. I couldn't believe it when I saw the FM's in basicly Train Master demo colors. After he found out how much we were into the
operation, he said if we would stay over to the next day, be could ride a speeder ahead of the train! I had a fight with my companions as it was going to be hard to get back for our flight home,
if we stayed. Thank heaven I won and got to run ahead of the train This was May of '74. Note second shot looking back through the speeder window. Almost got hit by the train at that point.
In the third shot. that fill up on the mountainside above the lead unit is the BdC line he just came down.

The following year Matt and I hit an "in the park" homerun. We took a long shot chance and road the CH-P mixed so we might get the meet with the BdeC. The hope was the CH-P would have
an FM. It had TWO. So as far as I know we are the only ones to get shots of FM's of two owners together , in Mexico. We beggd the CH-P hogger, in broken Spanish, to not leave without us
so we could get some sort of shots of the meet. It wasn't perfect, but we got it.

I had a centerspread of one shot in Trains Mag, of the chase, and I did a digital show at I think the 2007 Winterail Pizza show. There were 4 to 5 hundred folks there, nobody remembers?

Keith A (ft)

 

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The meet.

ft

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Hey Keith;

I was there!

John Shaw

John,

I just realized you were talking about Winterail, not being at BdeC!

ft

Fantastic story!!!!!!! Thanks so much for posting. I was on one of Let's Travel Tours excursions down the CHP line but the FM's were out of service. We did get roster shots of them and the SW1. We also begged the super at Chihuahua to pull one of the last of their FM's out of the shop so we could get a photo of it in sunlight. I've traveled extensively throughout Mexico in search of rail artifacts and produced four videos released through Pentrex of my travels - Central Mexico Rails, Northern Mexico Rails, Mexico's Pacifico Railroad and The Copper Canyon.
DLH

Thanks very much Keith, for your hard work back in the 70's.  It was the spread in Trains that got my attention.  Took too many years for us to sponser the  excursions to open the eyes of more folks.

We found the management right from the Top to be co-operative.  For the 1988 trip, they keep it open to protect the advertised operation.  But for a while we thought we had been had, when the arrival at Cumbre was late.  They had to stop several times to clear small trees from the rails, since they had not been operating for a few months.

The train crews were very proud of their operation.

Ed

 

mundo Wrote:
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> Thanks very much Keith, for your hard work back in
> the 70's.  It was the spread in Trains that got
> my attention.    That's what got my attention too! I actually entertained the thought of driving there in the Summer of 1981.
>
>  But for a while we thought we had been had, when the
> arrival at Cumbre was late.  They had to stop
> several times to clear small trees from the rails,
> since they had not been operating for a few
> months.

Forgot about the late arrival at Cumbre!

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