I heard one time that Amtrak was planning on entering the Mexican market in the late 1990s/early 2000s. What was the full story on this and what happened after that? Any idea if they will consider going to Mexico in the future??
Neither the original legislation nor subsequent modifications include Mexico.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
ejjski I heard one time that Amtrak was planning on entering the Mexican market in the late 1990s/early 2000s. What was the full story on this and what happened after that? Any idea if they will consider going to Mexico in the future??
Amtrak did not have any plans to enter the Mexican passenger train market. And it does not have any plans to do so now as far as I know. But it got close.
Long story short, the Inter-American began service from Fort Worth, TX to Laredo, TX, which is a border city, on January 27, 1973. It was subsequently extended to St. Louis and Chicago. It was the predecessor for the Texas Eagle. If memory serves me correctly, it was discontinued in the early 80s.
I rode from Dallas to Laredo way back when. The Inter-American departed Dallas at 7:00 a.m. and arrived in Laredo at 6:50 p.m. The average speed between San Antonio and Laredo was approximately 40 mph. I remember that the train had few passengers south of San Antonio. But Laredo was and is a fun city, irrespective of the bad press that it has gotten because of the drug wars across the border, and I have gone there many times.
As late as 1952 the South Texas Section of the Texas Eagle had through sleeping car and coach service from San Antonio to Mexico City. It also carried a through dining lounge car. The through equipment may have been owned by NdeM.
Found something interesting. This stuff is hard to find but I got lucky with the search.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010121221700/http://www.amtrak.com/news/pr/aztec.html
Don't confuse running trains with providing service. In this case Amtrak was not running a train to Mexico City but provided a service by interchanging a sleeping car with the FEM.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
Through sleeping car service to Mexico City was provided by MP/NdeM into the 1960's, at least according to OG's in my possession. Amtrak ran the "Inter-American" to Laredo but never interchanged a through sleeping car into Mexico.
Through service to Mexico City involved changing cars at San Antonio by the 1950s. The last through cars from San Antonio were MP 10-6s in around 1965. There were through cars between New York and Mexico City for a couple of years after WWII on the Sunshine Special.
The Inter-American was part of the package that also restored service from Seattle to Vancouver, and was supposed to restore other international service (The Montrealer/Washingtonian may have been part of that package). The intent was to interchange a sleeping car at Laredo/Nuevo Laredo, but the negotiations involving Amtrak, MP, N de M and the Border Patrol fell apart pretty quickly, and the Inter-American ended up a coach-only train until some time after it was extended to St. Louis in 1974.
The Original Inter-American, was commonly known as The Tamale to rail fans in the College Station area back in the early 1970's. We used to go over to Milano TX on Saturday mornings to watch and photo it as it creeped around the interconnection between the ATSF and the MP. The flanges were really squealing as iit made the tight turn. At the time it was normally a very beat up UP E-9 and two ex-Santa Fe coaches , still in Santa Fe markings. I have some slides of it somewhere that I should look for.
I also rode the first extended Inter-american from St Louis in '73, or was it '74 ( can't remember dates anymore). I do remember that in May of 74 the AC failed on the coaches, but not the sleepers out of Laredo, the conductor ordered busses, three of them. I got on them in Temple, as the train was in the station at the same time. So the sleepers got a private train and the coach passengers got busses.
I spoke to the conductor, whom I had met once before and believe it or not he put me, a 21 year old A&M student in charge of the busses. When the train left Temple we never saw it again. For the rest of the trip to SL I pulled the tickets folks presented, directed the bus drivers to the stations, As we made all the stops from Temple to SL. Turned the tickets and stuff in at at St. Louis station. In Little Rock the station folks were expecting us and directed us to a small diner down the street where everyone was allowed to order breakfast at Amtrak expense. Other then at Little Rock, at every other station. it was "who's in charge?- you are?- well Ok here are your passengers and their paperwork- have a good trip.
Its hard to believe that it was so informal, but then Amtrak as a whole was pretty informal at the time, but I do have the letter that I received from Washington thanking me for the assistance. It was a crazy thing to do, on my part and the original conductors part. I do remember that it was hot as hell that day- maybe it fried his brain to let a young kid do that. Anyway its a true story.
Sam1 ejjski I heard one time that Amtrak was planning on entering the Mexican market in the late 1990s/early 2000s. What was the full story on this and what happened after that? Any idea if they will consider going to Mexico in the future?? Amtrak did not have any plans to enter the Mexican passenger train market. And it does not have any plans to do so now as far as I know. But it got close. Long story short, the Inter-American began service from Fort Worth, TX to Laredo, TX, which is a border city, on January 27, 1973. It was subsequently extended to St. Louis and Chicago. It was the predecessor for the Texas Eagle. If memory serves me correctly, it was discontinued in the early 80s. I rode from Dallas to Laredo way back when. The Inter-American departed Dallas at 7:00 a.m. and arrived in Laredo at 6:50 p.m. The average speed between San Antonio and Laredo was approximately 40 mph. I remember that the train had few passengers south of San Antonio. But Laredo was and is a fun city, irrespective of the bad press that it has gotten because of the drug wars across the border, and I have gone there many times. As late as 1952 the South Texas Section of the Texas Eagle had through sleeping car and coach service from San Antonio to Mexico City. It also carried a through dining lounge car. The through equipment may have been owned by NdeM.
Well you got the train correct but probably not the destination. I believe the idea was to take the train across the border and transit to the city of Monterrey, Mexico. It would really be a surprise to me if Amtrak had Mexico City ever in it's plans because back then the Mexican rail system was a mess and getting to Mexico City would have taken forever from the Texas Border.
I think serving Mexico is a good idea and should be explored again once they get their gang issue taken care of. I would not go South of the border now until the lawlessness is fixed.
schlimm Neither the original legislation nor subsequent modifications include Mexico.
I think the farthest it went was the talking stage. Kind of like this Meridian, MS to Dallas service via the Southern Crescent that keeps surfacing from time to time but never materializes.
From reading old Amtrak schedules, Amtrak WANTED to extend the Inter-American down to Mexico, but they said that there were issues with track quality, and "ongoing negotiations" with NdeM. This was in the 70's. I think the relevant pages even had some text in Spanish (the same way the pages with the Montrealer and Adirondack would be in both English and French)Fast forward to 1999-2000. Warrington's ambitious plans for new trains included a train that would run San Antonio to Monterey, to be called the Aztec Eagle (I think there may have been a similarly named train in the past in Mexico). While they sent a "test" train a couple of times south of the border, nothing came of it, and the privatization may have been a nail in the coffin, as NdeM assured all potential private investors that they would NOT set up some kind of Amtrak/VIA type service.
LeRaakone Warrington's ambitious plans for new trains included a train that would run San Antonio to Monterey, to be called the Aztec Eagle (I think there may have been a similarly named train in the past in Mexico).
George Warrington was president of Amtrak, 1998-2002.
The last thru service from the US to Mexico was the AZTEC EAGLE which operated with a thru STL-Mexico City sleeper. Coach service was available from Nuevo Laredo to Mexico City. With the cessation of service by Pullman Co. on 12/31/68 sleeper service was droped by the MP (along with the GM&O & KCS). In mid January of 1968 the service ended although the AE operated in Mexico until at least the late 1980's
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.