Obviously, a LOT of American passenger equipment got sold second-hand to NdeM over the years. What's left? Anyone got any ideas?

Before anyone asks, I did a search for NdeM in the Interchange search function, and only got a little piece or two about a CNW observation and some sleepers Mr. Herron escorted down there about 30 years ago.

Thanks for any help,
Mike
Beaver Country, Indiana (almost left out the "o")

One recurring "legend" that I would like to have hard data about is of an N&W heavyweight diner still existing in Mexico. That is something we'd love to get our grubby little hands on.......

That would be fantastic! But there is that very real tavern-lounge Powhatan Arrow obs car in Riyadh... It's about time to get a cultural contribution from the oil money. I'm thinking fully funded restoration or perhaps fully restored and shipped via one of the kingdom's Russian built An-124's... It's only money, and the royal family has plenty!

Well, what about the surviving engines that pulled these cars while in NdeM service? Give me a blank check, I'll bring back the remaining PAs, and enought passenger cars to do a "City of Everywhere"!

Passenger service in Mexico is nearly non-existent and has been so for many years. There is some preservation happening but I am going to speculate that most of the classic stuff from the US has been worn out, gutted, and rotting for years. Rusted hulks just like the average carcass sitting in the back lot of your favorite museum, only much further away and in another country.

I thought the PAs that were down there were retrieved years ago and one was put into blue and grey ( I forget the RR that used those colors as well as the gentleman who did the restoration).

Later!
Mr. Ed

I don't have the details to hand but in a recent Trains or Classic Trains magazine there is an advertisement for a book about passenger cars that went to Mexico. I think it is by Robert Wayner.

I'll post the details when I have them.

Elizabeth

One car that's in Mexico is ex-WP CZ dome observation "Silver Planet" where it is, or was, being used in some kind of excursion train service.

Of the four PA's that went to Mexico, ex D&H (nee ATSF) 16-19, the most complete two, #17 and #19, are still there at the museum in Puebla. One of them is supposedly operational. The other two, #16 and #18, were returned to the US as stripped (and wrecked, in the case of #16) shells in 2000. Doyle McCormack of #4449 fame owns #18 and is in the process of slowly restoring it to "NKP 190." It's not finished yet. #16 was just sent to the Museum of the American Railroad in Texas to finally be cosmetically restored to ATSF warbonnet colors after many years of languishing in storage in Oregon.

About 1980, Mexico did buy some new coaches made in Canada by Hawker Sidley, I think. This may have hastened the disappearance of some of the older 2nd hand stuff.

Don't count on much of anything being left down there. It looks like most of the golden age heavyweights that were left down there have been cut up long ago. You hear the stories but if you ask the question; "where are the current photos?"...there is no answer. Mexico is not a communist country...they have cameras and camera phones. If the cars are there we would certainly see the pictures.

They started a handful of RR museums and those are on par with the 1970's era NRHS "museums" which is to say a lot of neglect and a hodge-podge of odd equipment. I traveled down there in the 1990's and saw only newer coaches in service that if they were up here we would call them "heavily vandalized". It is sad to say but they were disgusting. Tourism agencies in Mexico warn against traveling by train.

Now (on another subject)...has anybody ever written a Saudi embassy and asked if that obs car could be gifted and returned to the US? It does not hurt to ask...you never know what might happen.

T7

The Sierra Madre Express has some cars from the US. They give builder and car history information here:

http://www.railsnw.com/Tours/sierra_mad ... htm#copper

As has already been noted, it is very difficult to get reliable information as to what former US passenger cars may still exist down there. However, it is safe to say that there are very few cars that were saved from the large fleet of cars that were active in Mexico into the early 1990's.

In addition to the already noted former CZ obs "Silver Planet" (ostensibly privately owned) there is reported to be a former CZ D&RGW 10-6 sleeper at the museum in Merida; a former AT&SF Budd 1953 shorty RPO and a former MILW 1947 tap lounge (formerly in service on the LA County "Baxter Ward" train) at the museum in Puebla; the former NYC Budd 1949 sleeper obs "Sunrise Brook", at least one ex-NYC 1947 Budd tavern lounge, and a former MP smooth-side Budd diner that may all still be RR-owned. There is enough evidence to suggest that there may be at least 10 or so other former US lightweight cars still around either RR owned or in musuems, but exactly which cars and where they are located, I don't have any further information.

We made an inquiry a number of years ago, while Virginia had a US Senator that was a neighbor of a Saudi embassy official (pre-9/11). No real response to speak of.

What observation car?

Read the entire discussion.

-Micah