In late March and early April of 2000 I made another trip to Mexico and rode the three-car High Iron Travel Mexican Fiesta Explorers special train organized by Clark Johnson and Nona Hill that covered almost all of what is currently the Kansas City Southern de Mexico, now part of the merged Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroads. More info about this trip is furnished in the previous post I made on October 28, 2024.

The photo here shows the train on March 30 pausing for photos between the stations of San Bartolome Coro (KP 323) and Querendaro (KP 331) on a stretch of track that runs along the south shore of Lake Cuitzeo in the state of Michoacan. This is on KCSdeM's Caltzontzin District.

Unlike many of my photos of NdeM lines that have since been abandoned, this line is still very much active and is part of the KCSdeM system that is now part of the merged Canadian Pacific Kansas City. Unit trains of bulk commodities and double-stack container trains with distributed power use this line to access the west coast port of Lazaro Cardenas.

Here's what the approximate area looks like today, as seen in June 2023 by a GOOGLE Streetview vehicle where Highway 150 crosses over the track near Querendaro.

[maps.app.goo.gl]

My August 1, 1988 edition of TRAIN TIMES IN MEXICO shows NdeM running three passenger trains each way per day over this line. Now, it is freight-only. The new president of Mexico wants to reinstate passenger trains over several major routes but it remains to be seen how far this proposal will progress.