http://www.talkbaja.com/showthread.php?t=1677

This might be a good Association and/or Museum outing, if we could
arrange safe & secure bus transportation from the Museum to the Tijuana
station. It is a 5-hour package, with time allotted to shopping in
Tecate (and beer-drinking, obviously). The route goes through the
switchbacks in Valle Redondo. Maria Castillo-Curry, AIA of Tijuana (a
fellow Museum Board member) already agreed **to me** to help plan and
arrange any type of Club or Museum trip to Mexico, especially Tecate. I
think she would also agree to chapperone the trip; she is well-known in
Mexico as a rail history authority.

So get your cameras ready.

Ciao!
John F.

On 7/3/2010 11:36 AM, John M. Fiscella wrote:

http://www.talkbaja.com/showthread.php?t=1677

This might be a good Association and/or Museum outing, if we could
arrange safe& secure bus transportation from the Museum to the
Tijuana station. It is a 5-hour package, with time allotted to
shopping in Tecate (and beer-drinking, obviously). The route goes
through the switchbacks in Valle Redondo.

There are no switchbacks on the line. Rather, there are two horseshoe curves which cover the distance between the valley and the mountain.

My wife and I rode a trip from Campo to Garcia (just east of Tijuana) a year or two ago. After the cement plant west of Redondo, the train goes through vast areas of decidedly non-Mexican industrial (concrete or concrete block) housing (for the maquiladoras) and then slums of grinding poverty and profound stench.

While I personally urge anyone who has not seen this railroad to ride it, I think one doing so should be prepared for the contrast. We were sorely moved by what we saw. My wife does not possess any enthusiasm for a return ride, so I will have to travel alone, if I do at all.

Thanks for the heads up, John.

Ken Harrison