Submitted For Your Approval * Two-hundred-eighty-first Installment
Author: D. B. Arthur
Date: 01-01-2025 - 16:56

Here's a photo I took on February 19, 1996, TWENTY-NINE years ago, when I rode NdeM Train 109-110 from Mexico City to Puebla. The train is at a "new" station in the Juan Morales suburb on the eastern side of the city of Cuautla, Morelos that opened for service in 1973 when a standard-gauge line replaced a narrow-gauge line that ran on a different alignment closer to the center of the city. The narrow-gauge line had a wye and a "stub-ended" passenger station. Steam operations ceased in 1968. Most of the alignment of the narrow-gauge line has been converted into just one more city street and it has been appropriately named "Avenida del Ferrocarril". The city has retained some track and rolling stock as part of a museum near the downtown train station, including 2-8-0 steam engine 279. Apparently everything has fallen out of operational condition.

The "new" standard-gauge line that was completed in 1973 is now also abandoned, as no concessionaire was interested in operating this line when privatization came on the scene in 1998. Here's a recent GOOGLE Streetview image that shows the current sad state of the abandoned station. Perhaps the microwave tower is still in use. The train order semaphore is still displaying a "stop" signal. The station and the standard-gauge line relocation were only used for 25 years.

[maps.app.goo.gl]

As you can see here, it appears there was a group of school children who took a short train ride and were being met at the station by their parents. Red pants must have been part of a school uniform. I figure all of these kids must be in their thirties and forties by now.

Another view of this train at this station can be found at this link that I posted earlier:

[www.altamontpress.com]

I rode this train with fellow railfans Ed Graham of Daly City, CA, John Arbuckle of Hutchinson, KS and Brian Cutter of Minneapolis, MN. Ed and John have since passed on. Rest in peace, gentlemen.

https://i.ibb.co/qjmNRML/19960219-002-017.jpg



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  Submitted For Your Approval * Two-hundred-eighty-first Installment D. B. Arthur 01-01-2025 - 16:56


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