I
The streets of Chihuahua appeared black, moving smoothly as the unmarked van pulled up, then 0530 to the station, not a single car during the short trip from San Francisco met. Located founded in 1709 by the Spanish and the Native American word for "dry and sandy," as the name, Chihuahua City, about 4667 meters desert plain, is the capital of Chihuahua, the largest state of Mexico, with 150 000 m square mile area. A city cowboy, isFranciscan is the cathedral in its main square, Pancho Villa House, people dressed in cowboy hat, display and save the endless rows of cowboy boots. The state itself, topographically distinguishable from brown-less vegetation formations, is the largest producer of apples, nuts, cotton and pepper, and is widely used in the production of timber and livestock. An agro-Mennonite community produced its indigenous cheeses.
In front of and behind the fence,seemed the two locomotives and four cars came from the enlightened western Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad newspaper, which, as train 74, one of three songs rocked as he was preparing for the descent or the night in Copper Canyon and, finally, his last stop Pacific coast, Los Mochis. I just want to travel half way today in Posada Barrancas.
The small, two wood-bench-terminal, sporting little more than two cash-'tequillas "in most SpanishTo save the life without, for the operator behind the barred windows and armed with three other baggage, passengers are still asleep.
Fifteen minutes before the start was 0600, opened the door on the platform and the handful of passengers, giving them the cold morning darkness and again charged against the tenant, which indicated the passenger seat numbers. The first of the two cars, with a thickness of 68, in a four-deck seats side by side, 2-2, arrangement, and configuredalternately in red or pale gray-green upholstery, the car featured racks length, adjustable window blinds coated glass, and vice versa, toilets for men and women. The dimly lit car early in the morning calm, incomplete, open eyes, greeted me with a reception, heating the heat generated, as evidenced by the constant audible hum before boarding.
Long response, as the pair locked the rear of the car, produced an initial shock, as the movement of the chain started. Creeping pastthe streets still dark and empty, pulled the train on the tracks of silver, which runs through the outskirts of Chihuahua came, apparently slipping away day before the day as well.
Operating the rail link between recommended along the fertile plains of Chihuahua and the Mexican west coast, the port of Topolobambo goods for transfer to shipping routes, tracks of the Chihuahua al Pacifico railroad its origins to Albert Kinsey Owen, an American railroadEngineer who moved to Mexico in 1861 and designed a connection Topolobambo Chihuahua. Formation of a Mexican-American companies to do it two years later, had a contract from the Mexican government a railway between Piedras Negras and Topolobambo which would then provide stub in Mazatlan, Alamos, and to build Ojinaga. But eventually able to secure sufficient funds to complete the project, assigned to Owens Foster Higgins, the Rio Grande, Sierra Madre and the PacificRailways for the 1898-degree, 259-km stretch between Ciudad Juarez and Casas Grandes work. Insurmountable obstacles prevented the further expansion as well.
The project was later Enrique Creel, the Kansas City run, Mexico and Orient Railway, which was adopted and can connect further with Casas Grandes The Board, after four years of additional work, from 1910 to 1914. But the revolutionary attacks thwarted further completion of the next sectorOjinaga to Creel.
In 1900 it was linked to El Fuerte Topolobambo of many Mexican and U.S. railway company, but on condition that the full path from Chihuahua to Ojinaga remained until 1927, when the Mexican government, industry, which had begun Creel finished hard. Rest was 260-km path requiring the canyon, whose 7,000 meters altitude and topographical obstacles extreme engineering works would be exceeded. Nationalization of the railways independentThe companies that are still over one end of the line in 1940 unconnected operated announced that the Mexican government 13 years later, in 1953, the program would end.
The initial estimate of five years of construction project, starting with the work of Owens' in 1863, finally, has about 90 years and $ 90 million in claims, down the last stretch before the 1961 plan, attempts to multiply with experience , not by different companies, the cost overruns of unimaginable until thenProportions, engineering failures, the Mexican Revolution and the First World War, eventually won with a rail link between the sea level city of Los Mochis and the high altitude capital of Chihuahua the rugged, inhospitable topography of a series of Sierra Madre Occidental near the canyon of tracks that make their way up 86 tunnels and over 37 bridges threaded, crossed the Continental Divide three times, and were transferred to a difference in altitude of 8,000 feet from the subject immediatelyProcess.
Have occurred at dawn on black night like a metamorphosis colorless, gradually revealing the color of opaque clouds. The suburbs Chihuahua product rich, chocolate brown and the hills, golden straw-like grass growing up against the rails.
By decreasing the speed, felt the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad for their dynamism in Cuauhtemoc, now 132 km from its origin. Originally called San Antonio de Arenales, the country was known, later adopting its current name afterThe Aztec emperor, takes its origins arrival of the railroad in 1900, but a significant increase in nearly 21 years later, when Mennonite community settled.
Resume movement took the train in the middle of the golden wheat fields, stretching on both sides at the foot of the Sierra Madre mountains. To obtain a preliminary indication of topography has been fleeting. The sky, now receive a blue illustration, a few scattered formations of white cotton.
I went to the dining carfor breakfast, my first meal on the rails. Directly behind the locomotive, is characterized by a kitchen forward, four, four instead of stalls, a glass divider, two two-place objects on the left and a C-shaped, folded back on itself with a sofa tables on the right side, a second glass partitions, and four, four-seater stand. Brass lamps attached to the car hanging on the side of each table. Seats upholstered in dark red and green alternately.
A standard two-page menu featuring breakfast available on the market, lunch,and dinner items. My own breakfast an omelet with ham and cheese, fried potatoes with peppers and onions, baked beans with grated cheese and tortillas and salsa.
Leave the valley and its ubiquitous apple orchards was the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad over the Continental Divide for the first of what would become three times and short Junta, the location of the railroad roundhouse, now standing at 6,775 feet elevation. At the start, began its gradual ascentleaving the plains of Chihuahua.
Since 1030, some 200 kilometers, 74, the train wound through the woods of oak-pine-Sierra Madrean as he ascended through 7,000 feet. San Juanito, Chihuahua, and 265 km from an altitude of 8,000 feet in Mexico was the coldest city, even if the sun straight ahead unimpeded. Founded in 1906, is, like many villages along the route, took root following the extension rail.
At km marker 551,the peaks of the Sierra Madre Occidental from sticking.
Immersion 4 through tunnels, to 4,134.8 feet, the line of the longest and the position of the third crossing of the Continental Divide, was the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad branch on double track, stop motion, while we went eastward freight train on the left side partially reverse the tunnel and emerge into the branch for its approach in Creel 7735 meters. Founded in 1907, during the first phase of the railwayConstruction, is the gateway to the Tarahumara Indian culture and how the principle is the community within its canyons, inhabited by about 5,000 people. The ongoing economic activities include trade, the same railroad, the timber industry and tourism. A brief stop to allow a large tour group that bears the name tags on the cars before the train otherwise empty board almost immediately and moved beyond the village square and the line of wooden shops and inns.Diverting from the same outcrop, returned to the main path for his throat through urgent trips.
Since the four car chain wire on his way, but rock and pine, appeared before an Ferromex diesel engines and to the right or left of the window as it negotiated the curves. Climbing the highest point of the line at kilometer 583, 8071 meters in Los Ojitos, train followed 74 of the winding, always ascending, single track, and breathe the fresh air and pine wood fire smolderingInsert both ends of the cars on the podium stations.
In 1235, the train winds through tall, dense pine forests-threaded and carpeted expanse of the canyon is visible through the left window, where you from Kilometre 592, began a steep descent on "El Lazo", as the oval track geometry in a complete circle and crossed over itself.
Convergence at 1320 Divisadero, now 354 km from its origin, the two-locomotive and four cars Chihuahua al PacificoRailroad Canyon transition from the mountain topography and the reduced speed, passing a string of wagons and support vehicles to more movement on the surface of the double track railway. To stop unleashed 15 minutes of panning, were his patrons immediately engulfed in a mecca of activities such as states, which negotiated a temporary display of the Tarahumara Indians, basketry and wood carvings on the road, served by Divisadero Overlook, where they were met thin, clear air and thePanoramic views of the Copper and Urique canyons Tararecua whose size, depth and magnitude were silent reverence and promotion. A thin line, which wound a tributary of the river Urique, 4135 feet below. The geological formations have been the result of plate tectonics, moving about 90 million years, a system global phenomenon, which later produced in the mountains of North and South America. Unimaginable magnitude earthquake in the end produced the Sea of Cortezbetween Baja California and mainland Mexico. Today were deep gorges, green, and four times larger than the Grand Canyon of Arizona.
A locomotive whistle said it was time to return the train for the journey continues. The quick, four km walk to Posada Barrancas station, which serves three Canyon Lodges, brought me to my destination at night, the small pick-up a few meters from the rail cars awaiting action. After a pause of 30 seconds, theTrain resumed power and disappeared following their car as they moved between the track and sandwiching the rocks behind the curve, the position of the line of daily life stopped now for another 24 hours. The truck making its way up the hill with the dirt bags on the bed floor, he stopped at Hotel Posada Barrancas Mirador.
A three-story orange Adobe Lodge on the edge of the Copper Canyon, 5770 meters deep construction, featuring wood framed balconies, rustic Tarahumara Indiansand consisted of three meals a day. The lobby, decorated with a brown brick floor and walls of yellow brick with an Indian line drawings, featured a cathedral ceiling, beams and thick planks of wood of a tree trunk with three wagon wheel-like chandeliers, a large fireplace brick, with a ceramic-lined jacket and a crackling fire in the evening and leather sofas and armchairs. A small separate bar features a small, round tables, wooden chairs, colorful Indian motif, a fireplace and a painting of orange adobeWall-length mural of the Copper Canyon and the railroad that ran through him. A great outdoors, canyons, balcony view was a natural twig and trunk-line through a door from the hall. With frame
A, walking past outdoor fireplace ran columns of ceramics, stones and cactus on the right side and doors on the left. The rooms, in quintessential Mexican-Indian style, the hotel retains features tile floors and hard, white brick walls, wooden ceilings, small, whiteadobe fireplaces with orange bases, separate sink outside and cabinets where the doors were made of wood from the branches with an angle formed by the tiles in showers and rustic tree trunk road and balconies that overlook the gorge.
Lunch was included in the dining room, long wooden tables, serves and featured instead a thin branches downward sloping ceiling, four wooden candlestick, a green slate fireplace and large windows that looked over the gap andinclude cream of mushroom soup, grilled fillet of beef, baked potatoes, beans and cheese, nachos with cheese and tomato sauce and tortillas and salsa, peach-cream cake with a cookie crust and chocolate sauce drizzle and coffee .
The few wispy clouds on the horizon west over the cliffs of the canyon-shaped brush stroked temporarily converted to shades of pink and purple. The air is thin, pure and fresh, you can feel the calm. Far from being aSettlement or city has an appreciable size, orange adobe hotel overlooks the edge of an isolated world of its own.
Dinner, the second meal in the Canyon, including lentil soup, grilled chicken breast, rice lime with green olives and vegetables, and pineapple cakes.
His throat had been reduced to light without a referenceless black hole. The grid of the star, free from a cloud of vapor, mist or pollution-induced light soil, penetrated into the night sky ashigh-intensity beam melting of black wax. The cold, thin air was heavy with the aroma of burning logs in the fireplace adobe lodge. Fall asleep, I fall into the void of oblivion ...
II
Pierced only by the sounds of coyotes howling at night was the regular black has been invisible. In 0630, between Copper Canyon and a band of dark cloud that poured in the day as dawn orange molten lava through a splitter on the eastern horizon, slowlyforward, until the black cloud band was once infused with shades of orange, gradually absorbed like a sponge day of liquids. The columns and cliffs of the canyon, waves, although not yet distinguish, as if in silhouette was visible under the dark blue sky, the night light, the abundance of the interstellar star, had gone up to a single point of light representing the planet has been diagonally to the balcony Lodge. By absorbing the fury of the day, the cloud bandhovering over the horizon was enveloped in fire-red flame.
The daily train to the west, I would take the remaining half of the distance to the terminus, Los Mochis, had just moved from Chihuahua. The clouds that were now totally consumed by fire completely engulfed by the red. When the flame burned the back of an orange red cold progressed and turned into a baby blue sky morning. The gray granite of the canyon-shaped rocks and the green of itslowest vegetation was discernible. Breakfast is served in the dining room of the hotel, had included orange juice, a fresh fruit plate of watermelon, papaya, melon, banana, cherry and lime, pancakes, maple syrup and bacon, and coffee.
From late morning, the hut seemed to be suspended from his silence, like his guests, on a temporary basis, became involved with hiking and horseback riding, almost waiting for the train every day from Chihuahua, the lifeline of the isolatedCanyon of the community. A small, colorful clothes Tarahumara woman who placed a child in a fabric sling behind his back, looked at the window in the lodge curiosity of life "other" can be found here.
The suspension of silence, the time and the company was abruptly destroyed in 1330 when the dark green and red bud Ferromex diesel, black smoke and pulled his chain of five cars appeared from the bushes on the single track, after the right turn and stop toDeveloped "Old West'-like wooden platform on which around 20 people after Posada Barrancas" three huts, gathered. In contrast to yesterday's train, a locomotive of today, the Dining Car and standard bar, and three cars were together. Reached out loud on board with the rest of the baggage, passenger, I left my seat and the engine has released his brakes and the train was heading west had slipped between two walls of rock on the opposite side of the EarthRoad.
A few seconds after leaving the station, followed by the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railway in the multiplication of San Rafael and stopped the train in parallel to the east. A gradual descent from 7,500 feet to sea level characterize it, would most of the remaining path. Lunch is served in the dining car, including California, a baguette with ham, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, ketchup, mayonnaise and Dijon mustard on French bread with French fries.
Behind a left turn,The Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad crashed into a tunnel and 695.4 meters above the Laja Bridge, now that the tracks in a canyon full of pine trees. In 1515, it moved in 5300 Bahuichivo foot station, which serves Cerocahui city, located 16 km to the center of the apple and peach trees, and the village of Urique, which is located on the bottom of the canyon. Between 688 and 708 km, the train through a series of 16 tunnels carved into the canyon edge. The course,parallel to the narrow, rocky, river almost dry Septentrion below, was itself "miniaturized" the green-carpeted peaks Chihuahua pine, spruce, poplar and dominated. The sky, with plenty of majestic, silver cloud floating islands, which otherwise would be a prominent blue.
Reduced to the model, but a train, pulled the six chained connection between the towering granite peaks and alpine topographic-green of the oaks and pines, ingested at regular intervals by a series of tunnels, thedays immediately reduced to blue-black night. Imitating the locomotive, is slightly behind with curves and bumps prices, has followed suit with his car back eerie precision. Once the train is a tunnel that seemingly small round hole, the entrance seemed to be over at the next stop.
The entrance tunnel 49, the train is now run down into the Canyon of Santa Barbara, a 180-degree turn before the exit and then was subjected to a second 180-degree turn onBridge on the River Septentrion. Temoris The village, founded by the Jesuits in 1677 and is located on a plateau 3365 meters above the station was reached in 1610 in the afternoon.
If you are the Canyon Rio Septentrion train traveled through 74 mostly tropical topography, characterized by banana and mango trees. In 1708 and 748 km marker the train crossed the bridge was Chinipas 1018.5 meters 335 meters above the Green River Chinipas interface appearsthe top of the line, and six miles later, the last and longest of its tunnels, number 86, which was 5966 meters long tedious. As the last notes of a symphony, the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad Canyon Country left.
Towards evening, took the passengers, many of whom belonged to one of two groups, up to the bar car for wine and cocktails. The same car is located between the lunch and had the machine, configured with an inner barwith different round bar stool, mirror shelves for bottles and glasses of wine and spirits hanging upside down. Especially in red have been upholstered sofas drinking pinched with small, round tables, while a stand-up bar and a snack bar concession and souvenirs sold at the front of the car has been installed.
At km marker 781, the train was in Agua Caliente Bridge, which crosses the river and went to Fuerte 1,637 meters, the longest line. From low,cactus and scrub forest soil thor to 1730, he moved with remarkable speed the characteristic palisade under the blue sky and cloud dark halo periodical collections sunset. The horizontal lines of the cloud, brush stroked western horizon, were eaten by the combustion of coal Orange. Float burned a few meters above the curve shape of the mountains, the sun, in a pure geometry cylindrical, with orange-rabies before slipping behind them. The voice projected into the silence of the night, is a volcanic eruptionsky purple and orange molten lava in its consequences. The meanders of the river under the bridge weighs the track seemed a meeting of purple. The cloud formations, a temporary from Orange in flames as the night turns purple swept away the few remains of the day just over the horizon is burning embers. A quilt by Rubin and draped gray layer alone during the day, cover it with a dark, stuffy and let the warm, lighted interior of the car as the only residueLight.
Train travels 74, now parallel to the flat, near-desert in the state of Sinaloa, the Copper Canyon and the foothills of the Sierra Madre had left behind, and the remaining gap would be close to its final destination in the dark, leaving only l '"clock" of the wheels against the guide as a sound of its evolution. Hiking in the dining car on the track for the last meal, I ordered a bottle of French white wine and an appetizer of chicken cordon bleu with aMushroom cream sauce, Mexican rice and mixed vegetables.
The city of El Fuerte, had reached around 1910, was the Spanish colonial architecture in 1564 and was founded by Spanish conquistador Francisco de Ibarra in order to build a fortress to protect its citizens from Indian attacks. Serve as a trading post on the Camino Real for three centuries, the Spanish mule that has been associated Guadalahara Alamos mines, and the Sierra Madre Occidental, was the capital ofSinaloa in 1824.
Teetering on the single track in the dark velvet, diamond star of the sky and moved across the flat expanse of the country, the train 74, the remaining 82 miles between El Fuerte and Los Mochis, flying over the rectangles are the reflections of the side window of his burning car on the path covered with vegetation.
The reflections of car windows were rectangular like the reflections of the travel deals in contrast to the railway lines, alternative transportMeans to achieve certain goals, offered the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad only fixed to and through the Sierra Madre Occidental and their associated grooves. The lifeline for the communities along the route from Chihuahua to Los Mochis, the method has offered unique, vital transportation, traveled over 653 kilometers of track, the path may be identified only by a feat of railway engineering extreme, given the mountain canyons and unparalleled scenery, and with the Mexican and TarahumaraNative American cultures.
The only track on the train and many have been significantly proliferated size backyard. The lights of Los Mochis, the modern city is located only 19 km from the port city Topolobambo loomed before. Crawling through the suburbs, the houses that was moved a few meters from the actual path, the modern Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad over the Estación de Los Mochis at a snail's pace, and brought home the brakes for the last time in 2205, completed his 16 hours,20 minutes drive from the plains to the Pacific.
Among my suitcase from the rack and head down the few steps to the platform, I saw the crew in uniform off the train, the lights and the file in the terminal, after a different direction to run west, and it was only on the vital role played the wonder of the railway at the end of Copper Canyon Mexico with the rest of the link.
