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By Jonathan Clark This story was originally published in the Mexico edition of The Miami Herald on May 15, 2004. It's still early in the morning - 7:25 a.m. to be exact - yet the train's lone passenger car buzzes with excitement. In front of me, a group of middle school-aged boys holds an animated discussion of Mexican soccer, while from behind I hear a blend of lively conversations from the adult passengers, some in Spanish and some in indigenous languages. A few minutes out of the station, a conductor starts to make his way down the aisle. The modest coach has definitely seen better days, but it's clean and bright and its seats are cushioned and comfortable. As he makes his rounds, the conductor greets the passengers warmly, calling many by name and chatting idly as he dispenses tickets and change. "Cuicatlan?" he asks when he reaches my seat, indicating the town at the end of the train's 120-kilometer journey. I nod and he punches up my ticket. "That's 30 pesos," he tells me - about US$2.50. "That's a great fare!" I say. "You know, this train's a social service that the government provides the people of the Canada. It's not a money-making operation," he answers. The Canada is one of the state of Oaxaca's seven regions, covering the mountainous area north-northwest of the capital city up to the border with easternmost Puebla state. I ask him if there are many other passenger rail lines in Mexico that function like this one. He tells me that there used to be, but as far as he knows, this is the only one left. As it turns out, it is the only one left. Operating under a decree from President Ernesto Zedillo, in 1995 the Mexican government dissolved its Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico and began selling off the railways it had operated at a loss since the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship in the late 1800s. The seven private companies that purchased the rail concessions then set about dismantling the unprofitable passenger lines in favor of cargo-only freight service. The few private passenger lines that continue to operate in Mexico today - the Copper Canyon route in Chihuahua and Sinaloa, the Tequila Express in Jalisco and the Expreso Maya on the Yucatan Peninsula - are largely tourist routes. The Oaxaca-Cuicatlan line is now the only remaining public passenger train with a specific mandate to provide transportation to the people of Mexico. According to Gerardo Corres Tenorio, Director of Oaxaca city's Museo Ferrocarril Mexicano del Sur, the concession that the government sold to a company called Ferrosur in southern Mexico required the firm to continue the passenger service between Oaxaca and the Canada. "The government mandated that Ferrosur continue the service," he said, "because there are some villages that you can still only get to by train - they don't have modern roads yet, so of course they don't have any kind of reliable bus service." Reliable bus service, he said, has generally meant the end for Mexico's passenger trains, and it almost put this line out of business. "The old passenger train from Oaxaca to Puebla and Mexico City was a great line; it had a dining car, sleeping cars, everything. And it was always full," Corres said. But when a new superhighway connecting Oaxaca to Mexico City opened in 1995, the bus companies started to offer better service. A 10-hour trip to Puebla via train suddenly became a three-hour trip by bus, and the train was no longer full. The service, now only used by the residents of the isolated areas between Oaxaca and Puebla cities, was in danger of being shut down. ALFALFA AND JACARANDAS Back on the train, we chug slowly through the outskirts of Oaxaca city, making our first stop at what looks more like someone's back porch than a train station. Two elderly women in aprons climb aboard, loaded down with baskets. There are only two cars in this train: the diesel engine and the passenger car. The women have boarded to fill the void of a dining car, and their baskets are filled with an ample supply of homemade tortas, empanadas, and atole - a sweet, corn-based drink. They do a brisk business as they amble up and down the aisle. The train makes its way now through the Valles Centrales of Oaxaca, past the fertile, well-irrigated fields of alfalfa and the purple flowers of the jacaranda trees in full bloom. We pass farmers and their burro-drawn wagons and women holding young children who wave at the train as it goes slowly by. There are frequent stops at tiny hamlets like Etla, Huitzo, and Telixtlahuaca, where the train picks up two to five passengers at a time. After our last valley stop at San Sebastian Sedas, two hours into the journey, the train starts to climb up into the mountains. I estimate at least fifty passengers are on board. I do the math in my head and it doesn't seem that the tickets sales could come close to covering the expenses of the journey. According to Corres, it costs 3,000 pesos to run the engine for just one hour. So how is it that the line has remained in service, nearly 10 years after the superhighway opened? Just when the service looked like it would shut down, Corres said, the federal government stepped in to subsidize it. The Secretary of Communication and Transportation pays not only for the maintenance of the tracks, it also pays most of Ferrosur's other expenses for the trip, he said. "It's not a business anymore, it's a social service that the government provides to those villages of the Canada," Corres said, echoing the words of the train's conductor. CLIMBING INTO THE CANADA As we climb into the Canada, we crisscross a mostly dry streambed and the earth becomes more arid and the trees scrubbier. There's less and less evidence of human population up here, and a lonely trackside cemetery accentuates the feeling of entering a wild frontier. Three hours from Oaxaca city, we reach the apex of our climb at the small town of Tlaxila, where at least half the passengers disembark. What's immediately noticeable about Tlaxila is the absence of paved streets, and for that matter, cars. I asked 62-year-old Eusebio Dominguez, a fellow passenger who got on near Tlaxila, how he gets to Oaxaca during the rainy season when washouts often interrupt train service. There are some rough paths out of town he says, and a local man who has a 4x4 vehicle will take people to the state capital for twice what the train charges. "But it sure gets bumpy and cold in the back of that truck!" he laughs. From Tlaxila, the train begins a long descent down toward Cuicatlan where the railway will meet up with the relatively modern, two-lane Highway 135. We follow a new streambed, this one flowing north toward the Pacific and with a little more volume. The valley starts to become more lush and green, with tall willowy trees lining the stream and small fields of corn popping up along the banks. With an hour left in the journey, we enter the Canon de Tomelin. This is the southernmost section of the Reserva de la Biosfera Tehuacan-Cuicatlan, a federally protected nature reserve covering some 500,000 hectares. It provides sanctuary to 102 mammal species, including the puma, white-tailed deer, and fox, and it contains 10 percent of the county's registered maguey plants, which produce tequila and mezcal. It also features a spectacular array of columnar and flat-paddle cactus, which line the train tracks like works of modern sculpture. Just before it reaches Cuicatlan, the train meets up with and crosses the Rio Grande, which flows steadily along even in the height of the dry season. I enjoy spectacular views of the rugged Sierra de Oaxaca towering over the green river valley as the train coasts gently into Cuicatlan station, our final stop. It's been a five-hour journey from Oaxaca city, but the road-free villages, untouched wilderness, and rustic passenger car have made it feel as though I've passed back through time to the days of Porfirio Diaz, back to the days when passenger trains ran all over Mexico, connecting car- and bus-free populations everywhere. |