We were prepared to share the main part of the train with lots of people, goats and chickens, but the train is quite modern. The "coach" car is very clean and comfortable comfortable, and there's a lounge (bar) car, too. Here's the dining car, where we ate two or three meals during the trip..
The beginning of the ride is in the low-elevation desert of the Sinaloan Thornforest, filled with cactus and thorntrees. The terrain is relatively flat, and the vegetation is sparse. Below you can see the rear section of our railroad car. It's wide open and a great way to view the scenery. But be very careful about hanging out over the edge. A passing tree branch can take your head off!
After two hours (hot, even at 8am) the train begins the climb into the Sierra Madre. The Chihuahua-Pacific Railroad wasn't completed until 1961, and is an amazing engineering feat. Below you can see that we're on a bridge. Look closely, and you'll see another bridge up ahead. We're about to make a 180-degree turn inside a solid-rock tunnel. We exit the rock going the other direction and higher. Disneyland can't touch this ride!
We made three or four intermediate stops along the way. Here's one at (I think) the village of Témoris.
Here we're looking down onto a section of track we've already passed. This is part of El Lazo ("the loop") just before the town of Creel, where the track enters a tunnel and actually crosses over itself.
There are 39 bridges and 86 tunnels on the 406 miles of track. It takes about 12 hours (on a good day) to go all the way from Los Mochis, on the Sea of Cortez, to Chihuahua. Our trip included the eight most-vertical hours of that route. Our total trip (each way) was 266 miles during which we climbed more than 8,000 feet.
With the exception of an occasional siding, there's only one track, so extensive coordination is required between trains going up and others going down. But it's still Mexico, so the "coordination" isn't the most efficient.
The route is also narrow and treacherous. Here you can see a spot where the trackbed recently washed out and had to be rebuilt deeper into the hillside. Note the old track in the photo below. And, yes, we saw a number of mangled boxcars below.
Another view of the old and new tracks. See what I mean by "narrow and treacherous?"
©2001 Doug Kaye