4 January 2007 – Conexión Sur, Ramos Arizpe, And Monterrey

[Jimbaux is alive, for you he’s awake, because of you he’s alive.]

Yeah, I wish I was “asleep” now.  I’ve been crazy busy getting these posts out, but I’m pleased that many of you are enjoying them, and I am unable to respond to all of the e-mails in due time but hope to get to them.

Maybe You’ll Think Before You Speak

(You’re not listening to today’s song?)  I suddenly feel the need to mention that my selection of songs for these Mexico posts has almost entirely been dictated, as I wrote in June, by the fact that Godsmack’s The Other Side was new and in the CD player in my truck when I went to school at ITESM in the summer of 2004, meaning that I’ll forever associate the songs on that album, including today’s song, with my time in Mexico.  Isn’t today’s song cool?  I only chose it because I’ve essentially exhausted all the other cool songs on that album, and I’ve used at least one song from Three Days Grace’s Life Starts Now album, which was new when I went to Mexico in 2009-2010, hence my use of those songs.

Anyway, maybe I’ll think before I speak, or maybe I won’t, or maybe I’ll just start with the pictures from 4 January 2007, the day that I discovered the cool shot on the northeastern side of Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila, but we’ll get to that.  First, on the way to finding that shot, I returned to Conexión Sur, a neat place where I had been introduced for the first time three days before.  Here I was alone, and here is my shot.

How’s that?  I can’t remember years later what happened next, but perhaps a southbound came through, thwarting my hopes for any more northbounds.  Regardless, I apparently gave up on shooting trains (maybe MofW came through and got track and time, or whatever the Mexican equivalent is) and ended up shooting other stuff around García, like this.

The place is stunning.  Here’s the little river to the east of the ridge that separates García from Nacatáz.  I’m almost underneath the big concrete railroad bridge to take the picture.

Apparently, as you can see below, some derailment falloff happened here.  This is just east of Conexión Sur on the original mainline, meaning that there is a good chance that this was some sort of local traffic that bit the dust here.

Do you see the hi-rail truck above?

I’ve always been fascinated by the fence and gate to the cemetery on the western side of García, a fascinating town.

The picture, especially in the width shown, really does not remotely do it justice.

The Monterrey-García Local

I caught the L-MYLK-04 in a great spot.  Here it is.

Neat, eh?  Yeah, we’re not in Louisiana anymore, and we’re nowhere close to it either!

More Trains In García

What the heck is this?  Another local train?  Actually, trace indicates that it is a work train, which seems to make sense by what we see visually.

Check out that covered hopper with the BNSF reporting marks!

Let’s Go To Coahuila, Shall We?

Yes, we shall.  You saw that on New Year’s Day – when we went to Paredón – I took my first train pictures there but that it was a Ferromex train.  Now, I’ll get my first KCSM train shots in Coahuila.  Here’s the tail end of something heading north through Ramos Arizpe.

I have no idea the reason behind the trio of cabooses.

Anyway, Ramos Arizpe is about a dozen miles east-northeast of Saltillo (the capitol city of the state of Coahuila) and is the location of some automobile plants.  Anyway, here comes a train out of Ramos Arizpe.

You can’t see it in the above picture, but there’s another railroad line – this one belonging to Ferromex – running along the base of that mountain to the right of the frame, and it goes (to the right) to Paredón, which you saw on New Year’s Day.

This was as far west as I had yet been on this trip (and I’d go only a little bit farther west), and it was great to get some good train pictures in a state other than Nuevo León.

The Road To Saltillo

As my honorary regiomontano friend Joel once said, that should be the name of a poem or song or something.  I had actually been thinking the same thing long before he said it.  (Look, dammit, I called it, okay?)  The road to Saltillo is indeed something special, though there is a new one!  Anyway, here’s a view of the ride back to Monterrey on the old road.

Do you see Cerro de la Silla?  I shot the work train off of a bridge by the time I got back in town, but I’ll save that for later.

Back At The Shop

Night falls, I eat and take a shower, and I go back to the yard and shop with camera and tripod.

Check out these old B-Boats!

I miss those things.  I really do.

Here’s a Super 7, relettered and restenciled and renumbered into KCSM paint and numbering system, at the washracks.

Do you see the man at the washrack spraying water on it?

That’s all for tonight.

Thanks

I’ve been getting plenty of e-mails in the last week since the publication of these Mexico articles, and in the interest of keeping these posts coming in a timely fashion, I have not acknowledged most of them yet.  Keeping up with these Mexico postings, I’ll admit, is sapping the life out of me, but I’m glad to put this stuff out there finally, and I hope that you – and more of you – continue to enjoy them.

Regards,

Jimbaux