In the fading light of February 21, 1996, TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO, NdeM Train 108 has arrived at its destination city of Oaxaca, Oaxaca (similar to New York, New York) and the station is functioning as it was originally intended---a train station.

Since the passenger trains have been discontinued and the rail line into the city of Oaxaca has been abandoned, the station now functions as a **wait for it** RAILROAD MUSEUM.

My traveling companions and I spent the night here and, the following morning, we caught Mixed Trains 332 and 331 that provided us with a 4 hour, 22 minute round-trip between Oaxaca and the small mining town of San Geronimo Taviche in the mountains on the south side of the metropolitan area. William D. Middleton wrote an excellent article about this train in the January 1996 issue of PASSENGER TRAIN JOURNAL. Viewing GOOGLE aerial photos, the rail line to San Geronimo Taviche has been converted to a road for rubber-tired vehicles. "Progress."

After NdeM was privatized and no concessionaires were interested in operating this line, for about seven years either the Mexican federal government or the State of Oaxaca continued to subsidize and operate a tri-weekly "essential service" train (one locomotive and one car) between Cuicatlan (KP 252) and Oaxaca (KP 367) as there were some residents living in an isolated river canyon and the train was about the only way they could remain linked with the outside world. The train was on a up-one-day, back-the-next schedule. The government must have convinced the people to move or advised them that the "essential service" was only going to be essential for a limited time as the train was eventually discontinued. I imagine the service lasted until the first major track washout, tunnel collapse or landslide. It was operated under contract by FerroSur.

Here are a couple of GOOGLE links that show what the train station looks like today. With the second link you can "zoom out" and see where it was situated in relation to everything else. It looks like it's a children's library as well as a museum.

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