Peter D. Wrote:
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> I can only guess to the why there are no trains anymore. Gasoline, four wheeled auto's, and diesel trucks on new roads to these far away places?

No need to guess. When everyone can afford a car that they can drive on improved roads, they lose interest in riding passenger trains, with or without freight cars. The train from Durango to Tepehuanes only ran three days a week. If you have a car, you can go any time you want.

This phenomenon has happened all over the world. I have a friend who lives in Lebanon and he's sent me photos of what little is left of the abandoned railroad. Lots of people drive rubber-tired vehicles in Lebanon.

From an environmental standpoint it doesn't make a lot of sense, but personal conveniences and preferences pretty much win out every time.

There was a shipper in Santiago Papasquiaro, which is a pretty good-sized city, that used those boxcars, and he was probably told that, by a certain date, he would have to start shipping by truck. There are countless examples of where that has happened in the U.S. and Canada as well.

The world we live in.