wjstix doctorwayne doctorwayne wrote the following post yesterday: wjstixReally, the bottom line is the US railroad system is designed to allow cars from one railroad to go pretty much anywhere in the country, so businesses can ship their products and receive the raw materials they need from anywhere... Actually the system covers pretty-well all of Noth America. That's why it's not unusual to see Mexican cars here in Canada. Except the OP's question was regarding a layout set in the 1960s, not today.
doctorwayne doctorwayne wrote the following post yesterday: wjstixReally, the bottom line is the US railroad system is designed to allow cars from one railroad to go pretty much anywhere in the country, so businesses can ship their products and receive the raw materials they need from anywhere... Actually the system covers pretty-well all of Noth America. That's why it's not unusual to see Mexican cars here in Canada.
Except the OP's question was regarding a layout set in the 1960s, not today.
And his answer is just as relevant. Tracks connected all the way from Canada to Mexico back then too.
Free trade agreements maybe mean more stuff is flowing back and forth now, but it has always been possible for Canadian cars to make it to Mexico, and for Mexican cars to make it to Canada, and US cars to make it everywhere.
While some things are less *likely* than others, it's *possible* for a car from just about any railroad in North America to end up on any other railroad.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
In 1934 the New York Times had an article about the travels of a freight car Require subscription to read.
https://www.nytimes.com/1934/11/25/archives/the-freight-car-has-its-own-odyssey-far-it-travels-on-alien-rails.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
cv_acr cv_acr wrote the following post 17 hours ago: wjstix doctorwayne doctorwayne wrote the following post yesterday: wjstixReally, the bottom line is the US railroad system is designed to allow cars from one railroad to go pretty much anywhere in the country, so businesses can ship their products and receive the raw materials they need from anywhere... Actually the system covers pretty-well all of Noth America. That's why it's not unusual to see Mexican cars here in Canada. Except the OP's question was regarding a layout set in the 1960s, not today. And his answer is just as relevant. Tracks connected all the way from Canada to Mexico back then too.
I think modeling what is/was common/normal is more effective than modeling 'oddball' stuff. Of course North America was connected by rail in the 1960's, but before NAFTA there were many more obstacles to crossing an international border - let alone two.
If you visited a Canadian railyard in the 1960s, virtually all the cars you'd see would be Canadian cars, a US yard would be virtually all US cars. Very different from today.
I suppose it's possible someone once shipped something from Mexico to Canada via rail in the 1960s in an NdeM boxcar, but I suspect it would be very rare.
As noted, the gauge was 4'8.5" from the northern most point in Canada all the way to Ciudad Hidalgo, on Mexico's border with Guatemala. And, as interesting as the international interchange of freight cars was, passenger equipment was also swapped across both borders. In New England, RDCs belonging to Canada's Dominion Atlantic Railway could be seen on the B&M, in Boston's North Station.
Canadian National joined up with the Pennsylvania, New Haven, Boston and Maine and, Central Vermont, to offer international service between Washington DC and Montreal, via New York City, New Haven CT, Springfield MA and White River Junction and St. Albans VT. Cars were supplied mainly by CN, PRR, NH, and B&M, until Patrick Mc Ginnis made the B&M an all Budd RDC railroad. Yes, those black and green CN cars in a train with PRR tuscan red and New Haven's stainless steel and orange were quite the sight.
Going south of the border, Mopac and NdeM swapped 10-6 sleepers at Laredo, Texas on the daily run between St Louis and Mexico City. The Mexican cars added additional color to the Texas Eagle. A note in the June 1965 Official Guide of the Railways, informs the traveler that the southbound Mexican side of the run due to depart Nuevo Laredo at 6:15 PM, "could be held until 7:45 PM when necessary, for border inspection".
Another detail to be noted on house cars coming from Mexico, at least in the 1980s, was the sealant applied to the doors once the car was loaded. This was to make it obvious once the car had been loaded, it hadn't been tampered with. Remnants of this sealant clung to the door and doorway for months after the car's return from south of the border. Anyone modeling a railroad in a border state, interchanging with Mexico in the 1980s, should have some boxcars and/or reefers with this detail.
One more note, railroad yards in the major cities of the east coast, north of DC had no shortage of Canadian cars, in restricted service, bringing in newsprint.
The cars which I saw in the '60s (and mid-to-late '50s) here in southern Ontario were from all over North America, even though CNR and CPR might have been most predominant. This might have been while sitting at a crossing, watching the freight cars from everywhere as they passed, or sitting on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment, with a telescope in-hand, checking out the railyards and industries which were viewable below in the city of Hamilton.
When I got my driver's licence, there were lots of train-watching spots within or near the city, which offered good views of North American rolling stock (and locomotives, too)...so diverse that it was almost like a map of North America rolling by.
That's one of the main reasons why I have so many foreign-road cars on my layout.
Railroad amalgamations and takeovers may have made the railroad system in North America more efficient, but it also made it more boring.
Wayne
doctorwayneRailroad amalgamations and takeovers may have made the railroad system in North America more efficient, but it also made it more boring.
Mike
Can you imagine doing anything like this manually before computers took over? It wasn't until the late 60's that railroads started to get mainframes let alone pcs. No wonder businesses were broke long before they knew it.
NHTXAs noted, the gauge was 4'8.5" from the northern most point in Canada all the way to Ciudad Hidalgo, on Mexico's border with Guatemala. And, as interesting as the international interchange of freight cars was, passenger equipment was also swapped across both borders.
Yes I'm aware of all that. Here in Minnesota, CN's mainline has run through northern Minnesota for a century, and the DW&P ran freight and passenger trains from Canada to Duluth MN, often including Canadian cars - which had to be returned to Canada within I believe 48 hours or pay extra fees/duties.
The point you're making is actually kind of the point I was trying to make. Seeing Canadian cars in the northern US wasn't uncommon, and it would make sense that Mexican RR cars showed up along our southern border back then. But how common was it that say a NdeM boxcar from Mexico would go all the way across the US to a destination in Canada before NAFTA? My guess would be 'rare to never'. COULD it have happened, that a shipper paid all the associated extra duties etc. to do it? Yes. But did it happen ever? Did it happen a lot? Are there lots of photos of Mexican cars in Canada in the 1960's?
wjstixBut how common was it that say a NdeM boxcar from Mexico would go all the way across the US to a destination in Canada before NAFTA? My guess would be 'rare to never'. COULD it have happened, that a shipper paid all the associated extra duties etc. to do it? Yes. But did it happen ever? Did it happen a lot? Are there lots of photos of Mexican cars in Canada in the 1960's?
There are a lot of contingencies in those questions. Generally your chances of seeing a car is somewhat dependent on how big the railroad's car fleet was. It would be more likey to see a PRR car than an NdeM car by the fact that there are several times more PRR cars than there are NdeM cars. Even if duties etc. wasn't an issue, it would be "rare" to see an NdeM car just because they a very small (a rare) fleet.
Also it would depend on how much business Mexico and Canada did, pre-NAFTA. The chances of a Mexican car vs. the chances of a US car would proabably be close to the level of business with Mexico vs. the level of business with the US.
You are probably correct that there weren't many NdeM cars in Canada, but there probably some just because if it can happen on a railroad it probably does.
As far as there being "lots" of photos. That's a double edged sword. Since a Mexican car is relatively uncommon, its quite possible that they got photographed more than just another CN car. There might be more Mexican car photos proportionally than there was Mexican traffic, just because they are a "photogenic" car. On the other hand since they are not as common, and in the pre-NAFTA era relatively plain, they might not have been noticed and therefore not photographed.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I would think there's sort of an economic "Catch-22" at play also. If a company in Toronto needed one or two boxcars of something a month, I would think they could find whatever it is they needed in Canada or in a bordering US state, rather than spending the money (duties, tariffs, etc.) and time/delay risks to ship a car or two all the way from Mexico.
Conversely, if they needed a lot of something, like say they got a great deal on steel I-beams they needed to build a large building with, it would probably be cheaper to ship it directly from Mexico by sea to a Canadian port rather than by rail.
wjstixIf a company in Toronto needed one or two boxcars of something a month, I would think they could find whatever it is they needed in Canada or in a bordering US state, rather than spending the money (duties, tariffs, etc.) and time/delay risks to ship a car or two all the way from Mexico.
I didn't know Canada produced Mexican pottery, lava rock, avacadoes, coffee and cane sugar and raised agave cactus for tequila. There are a lot of pre-NAFTA "hecho en Mexico" items. One of the biggest cross border commodities is beer.
wjstixConversely, if they needed a lot of something, like say they got a great deal on steel I-beams they needed to build a large building with, it would probably be cheaper to ship it directly from Mexico by sea to a Canadian port rather than by rail.
On the other hand, if the mill was in the interior, they would have to load the steel on arail car, ship it to the port, transload it to a ship, take it to Canada, unload it off the ship and onto a railcar, then transport it to destination. It might be easier to go all steel wheel.
The Mexican cars that I saw in those long-ago days were not commonly seen here, and over those years, there might have been only 2 or 3. It just boggled my mind to have seen them here.
As for American cars, had that been in the time of digital cameras, I have little doubt that there'd be any American roadname missing from the collection that I would have had.