We met El Chepe early in the morning in the town of El Fuerte.
I really didn't know what I was in for. This trip was a spur of the moment impulse. After we boarded I was a little concerned when guards in beige fatigues passed through the cars wielding machine guns. Should I feel safe or insecure? Probably secure.These are State Police who guard the train. It seems there were robberies many years ago but since the guards were added after 1998 those have ceased.
I soon found out what an engineering marvel this rail route is as it winds its way first along the Rio Fuerte then through canyons and mountains. It climbs at a 7% grade from Los Mochis to the city of Chihuahua passing above Las Barrancas de Cobre (Copper Canyon). The route crosses 39 bridges passes through 87 tunnels clickity clacking and wailing its way through the incredible Chihuahuan landscape. This engineering marvel took almost 90 years and 90 million dollars to complete. The Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad ‘Chepe’ – as we know it today, was first the dream of Albert Kinsey Owen, a utopian dreamer. In 1871, Owen arrived in Mexico and started down the Pacific Coast in search of an ideal location for a new socialist colony. He selected a site at the Bay of Ohuira [Topolobampo] and organized a Mexican-American company that — among other projects — desired to build a railroad that would connect his new colony with the mid-eastern section of the United States.
Owen failed to realize the railroad. The project was daunting. Just look at the landscape through which the train passes.
Tmeoris and "La Pera" because the train makes two switchbacks here (shaped like pears) avoiding an impenetrable mountain wall.
Another view of Temoris
In the late 1800's a group of North Americans under Albert Kinney Owen, a dreamer, who was also a civil engineer looked for a place to start a colony based on the idea of utopia. (Utopia comes from the greek and means "nowhere".) Owen's utopian vision drew a group of participants from New England who eagerly left their rocky farms to follow Owen to a spot in Mexico that he took a shining to when on a surveying mission a few years before, a place on the Bahia de Cortez called Topolobampo. Owen dreamed of a
railroad linking the mid western United States through Texas, and Chihuahua to this Mexican port. Not only would the cooperative colony benefit from such a project that was to be located on rich Sonoran agricultural land nearby but so would all people who lived along the proposed route. The Mexican government granted him
permission
to form the Texas, Topolobampo & Pacific
Railway and Telegraph Company in 1881, and the first colonists began to
arrive in
1886. Owen's rail remained just that an idea, and it wasn't until 1961 that the line was completed by the Mexican government. Topolobampo, the utopian colony eventually withered, like so many communes have done, when
the members were divided in their views on the
ownership of land and water rights.
The only Utopia I have ever known was brief and took place on an evening in August in Maine siting under a large silver maple tree on tufted grass. I was very tired and it was dry after a couple of weeks without rain. With my head against the maple trunk I fell asleep so beautifully not being disturbed by a single mosquito which were always a plague in Maine. That was Utopia even if it only lasted an hour.
Thinking about communes,, however, my thoughts drifted to monasteries, which are inherently socialistic have suceeded for centuries. It seems dot coms and communes seem to fail. Why is that? I myself was taught by Benedictine Monks and Benedictines, a group that has been about since 529.
Monasteries are bound by religion, and ermetic by nature drawing those who desire a contemplative life,, perhaps the best candidates, yet they hove towards competition between other orders and the public itself. Participants attempt to produce and improve,,, while individual egos are kept in check somewhat by vows. Look at the history of Benedictines who some consider the founders of Europe. Wherever they went, the monks introduced crops, or industries, or
production methods with which the people had not previously been
familiar. Where they landed they introduced the rearing of cattle and horses,
there the brewing of beer or the raising of bees or fruit. In Sweden the
corn trade owed its existence to the monks; in Parma it was cheese
making, in Ireland salmon fisheries and, in a great many places, the
finest vineyards. They stored up the waters from springs, that they
might distribute them in times of drought. In Lombardy it was the monks
from whom the peasants learned irrigation. The monks have also been
credited with being the first to work toward improving the breeds of
cattle, rather than leaving the process to chance.
Is that part of their longevity,,, ambition shrouded in faith and obedience? If monasteries became too worldly something new and more austere may split off from the former and the cycle starts anew. Like beehives that split due to overpopulation a "new" group takes most of the honey and goes searching for another sweet spot. Communes though seem to quickly lose their initial euphoria, the liquor extracted from ideals compromised by individual needsd,,, and they begin to unravel losing their initial intimacy. So like a marriage subject to the law of entropy the participants begin to look out for themselves. Owens's colony suffered from lack of capital, conflicts over who owned what, and
resource management, and founder differences.
Albert Kinney Owen left the colony in 1883 but a partner in the founding, Benjamin F Johnston, a capitalist, developed a sugar industry on rich land nearby on what is now called Los Mochis (place of turtles in Nahuatl). Los Mochis grew into a prosperous agricultural center under the stewardship of Johnston. It still is today. The train line called El Chepe begins there. Although Owen never was able to bring his utopian dream to fulfillment, before his death two railroads were built where he
once had concessions. Enrique Creel, a powerful and ruthless mexican businessman, and Alfredo Breedlove, on whom I can find no information, headed a group that once again began construction on the rail line around 1900. They met little success. Arthur Stillwell, founder of the Kansas City railway, wished to link Kansas to Topolobampo but only was able to complete a part of the line from Ojinaga to Chihuahua City, Mexico between 1910-1914.
Believe it or not one of the contractors who worked for Stillwell was Pancho Villa. The Mexican Revolution arrived about this time and for many years all work on the project stalled. It was the Mexican government that finally completed all the bridges and tunnels in 1961.
A train ride is always a treat. El Chepe is no different. You sit at first and watch the landscape unfold like a geologic feature film. First along the Rio Fuerte and then slowly climbing into the hills you can see the vehicle in which you are riding, like a metal snake on the curves. The landscape will suddenly open into an abyss or you will find youself shoulder to shoulder with jagged peaks. All the while you are conscious of geologic time and you should be humbled. I spent much time in the vestibules between cars poking my head out into fresh air swaying with the rhythmn of El Chepe.
El Rio Fuerte del Chepe
Temoris and The Pear
Temoris
Crossing the River at Temoris
Waterfall at Temoris
Below Basket Raramuri sellers at San Rafael :
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