All Kansas City Southern de Mexico service to and from the Mexico City-area remains suspended, KCS officials say.
Vandals reportedly blocked tracks in Nopala in the Mexican state of Hidalgo, stopping a freight train which was then rear-ended by another train, according to Mexico News Daily.
The engineer of the lead train said a barricade made of tires, branches, and rocks forced him to stop, and nearby thieves raided intermodal containers for appliances and audio equipment.
A second train, carrying hoppers of grain, hit the stopped train. Fire engulfed the lead locomotive on the second train plus some of the at least 15 cars reported derailed in the collision.
Mexico News Daily said there were three injuries; local news publication Diario Rotativo and Azteco Uno Television reported four, Diario Rotativo saying that they were locomotive “operators.”
KCS officials say they had hoped the double tracks at Nopala on the KCSM Tula District could be re-opened by late last weekend but say the route remains closed as of this morning. El Sol de Hildago (The Hildago Sun) reported that cleanup crews had been delayed until authorities could complete investigations.
An Azteco Uno video report at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV7iYMeTmzM shows KCSM ES44AC No. 4773 lying on its side at the collision scene along with the charred wreckage of another unit entangled with containers and their flatcars.
Mexico News Daily said that during the first quarter of 2019, Mexico had 1,027 thefts from trains, up by a third. The most common freight stolen was grains, seeds, auto parts, and construction materials.
According to the newspaper, Federal Police say a gang which broke off from a cartel specializes in rail and fuel theft along the border between the states of Puebla and Veracruz.
Most Mexican rail thefts have occurred in the states of Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Sonora.
JF Turcotte: Believe the Tula District between PK 47 and 212 is 2 MT and CTC, according to KCSM Horario No. 3. 80 miles north of Mexico City would appear to be on this portion of the District. The balance of the Tula District is CTC. all the way north to San Luis Potosi. There is a joint track situation with FXE on the 2 MT territory, I believe. My Railroad Español is shaky u=in reading the Timetable!
Yes Anna where are the cops? Some of the Class one railroads are cutting their police departments.and they don’t escort trains anymore. Their freight rates include that there.has to be a larger amount of loss than previous years so it has almost become cost prohibitive for a customer to file a freight claim unless it is a large dollar loss,
Just heard a rumor that a Class 1 may cut more police personnel in October.
Mister Welch:
I am not an anthropologist, and I do not place any value on the structure of any society. They are what they are. My point is that, as a denizen of the particular society of which I am a member, I cannot judge the operation of other societies. I can observe, try to understand, and learn. I cannot judge.
You offer two ways to deal with the organized theft suffered by KCS, and I am assuming from the context of your remarks that specifically you are addressing the issues of KCSdeM. While either will work in the context of that society if properly applied, both have advantages and disadvantages. A third way, which is to expand the notion of fealty not to your patron but to your society, offers more promise but would take longer. However there are elements in Mexican society which acknowledge this must be done, as well as elements in Mexican society which work against such efforts due to their own short-term self interest.
Who will win? Get some popcorn, settle in, and watch the show.
Now, about the issues discussed below in various places in the United States. The US is an Anglo derived society, and property rights here are held in high regard. The short term solution is to hire police and, if necessary, blow the bastards away. Teach them that looting a train comes at an unacceptably high cost. The longer term solution is to investigate the inner workings of these subcultures and find ways to modify them so that they no longer produce such kinds of people.
The problem there comes from the history and structure of US society. It is an inequitable society with a high and rising Gini coefficent, and a fairly ugly (and ongoing) history of some segments of US society marginalizing and holding back other segments for their own self interest. There is a tension between the forces in US society which attempt to break down these inequities and the forces which attempt to keep them in place.
Get some more popcorn, this should be worth watching.
Some homework. First, read up on the history of the last thirty years of the railroad in Guatemala, and then tell me why it is likely it will never run again. Second, tell me what the history and cultural significance of bullfighting is in Latin derived cultures. Papers on my desk on Monday.
The above comments are generic in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn absinthe addled sloth.
Anna: You sound like a very educated anthropologist. Unfortunately, you seem to be saying ( correct me if I’m wrong) that all societies are equal or have equal value. I disagree. Every society has things that we can learn and take into account in our own situation. We don’t learn, though, and hence the destruction of knowledge and history. However, more to the point, how can KCS trains be protected from organized theft. Two ways that I see. Kill the thieves on sight or pay off or kill the the patron. As an owner of KCS stock (private property), I want the railroad to prosper. It is sad that those without “western” morals usually triumph.
Anna Harding – Haven’t we been through this several posts ago? It would be racist for the cops to target these miscreants who are displaying an alternative culture.
Where are the cops?
The above comments are generic in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
You are almost correct James except that you don’t have to wait for the sun to go down in Chicago. If the train is there and conditions are right it is game on. The steam connector would work for the head end but not on a slow moving train or when a pin has been pulled, etc.
Charles, in the late 60’s most of the guys that worked the hind end of transfer jobs out of Englewood/Park Manor packed their own method of protection. Those that didn’t pack refused to walk the train in an emergency stop situation – unless they were accompanied by a gumshoe. The dispatchers would make a concerted effort to keep us moving, especially the piggyback trains. If, for any reason we were stopped, especially at night, we could look back from the head end and watch (that’s really all we could do) our train get swarmed by thieves.
Ed – With countless trains transversing Chicago over the decades, that I know of only one crew member was shot. This was on GTW maybe in the 1980’s.
We have our own cohorts of people who don’t work here in the States. In Mexico, lots of people work. There are numerous auto factories, major appliances, etc., in Mexico. In our world today, all factories must work to the same standards, whether in Germany, Sweden Canada or Thailand or Mexico. The days when I chose a car on the basis of where it was built (i.e. Chrysler Canada Piquette Avenue Windsor good enough, Chrysler Joseph Campau Hamtramck Michigan avoid like the plague) are decades past.
This is a case of the have nots too lazy to work, so they rob any person (even their neighbors) or company to get some money for drugs, etc. Look at Chicago–when cabooses were on trains, they rear crews carried brake sticks for protection. I am glad no crew members were hurt.
Many years, the BN purchased new jumbo covered cars. A number of them were loaded with barley to Mexico. When they came back to the BN, the aluminum hatch covers were missing, so they BN had to replace when. I don’t know if the BN ever sent barley to Mexico again.
Ed Burns
Retired Class 1
Mister Pins:
It would be racist only if they are not in the United States. The United States is an English derived culture. Here, property rights are important. This is embodied in the dominant culture, and in the law of the land. Property crimes are taken seriously.
So where are the cops?
The above comments are generic in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
Mister McGuire:
There is a difference in cultures between the US and Mexico. In the US (derived from our British and, earlier, Germanic roots) property crime is a big deal. Theft is taken quite seriously in societies derived from these roots.
In many Latin derived cultures, not so much. If you can get it and hold on to it, it’s yours. This is one of the cultural issues in Latin America which have lead to much of the chaos and social problems which exist in those societies. Acts (not necessarily criminal) impugning a person’s honor, image, or standing in society on the other hand are taken very seriously.
In English derived societies particularly, there is the concept of the “sturdy yeoman”, standing on his own two feet. In Latin derived societies there is the concept of the patron (pronounced paw-trone), who is your protector, and to whom you owe fealty and to whom you appeal if you have been wronged.
For this reason I would not expect this sort of thing to become common in the US, and if it does happen I would expect the reaction to be extreme. That it happened in Mexico indicates the criminal elements are becoming emboldened but aside from that, I have seen this sort of thing before and it does not surprise me. It was a train robbery, pure and simple.
The above comments are generic in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
A train following with a different cargo aboard maybe the solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeATCwk5PTQ
It’s only a matter of time before this starts happening in the US.
When you want the job done right, you engage a specialist. This sounds like Norfolk Southern in Chicago (remember?) on steroids. Maybe KCS will bring renewed meaning to the phrase “riding shotgun.”
To a degree it is happening in the US. When the sun goes down the fine outstanding citizens of certain Chicago neighborhoods go shopping. Trains are full of goodies. Earlier this year while rounding a curve passing a van train I almost hit the bucket brigade passing the goods over the fence. Not the first time and it all happens oh so frequently. Often with information from someone on the inside.
Ross – I’ve gone through there riding the head end in a GG1 with the front steam connector pointed trackside with the valve wide open. When required, the steam was turned on. George
Reminds me of No. Philadelphia. Whenever we moved any of our PV’s through there we ALWAYS had an escort officer on both ends clearly brandishing a double barreled 12 gauge shot gun. Only rarely did they have to fire a warning shot. The ” natives” got the message.
Sad but true. Ross Rowland
Mister Pins:
Something else which got my attention is that this happened in Nopala, Hildago. As it happens there is a cement plant not too far from there and I lived for quite a while in Tula de Allende, which is the big city thereabouts. I have a tendency to go native when living in Mexico, what can I say? I like the place.
That cement plant, by the way, is a major shipper on the rail line which was wrecked in the robbery incident. They do enough traffic that they have their own yard and assigned switch engines.
One of the things in Tula is a Toltec archeological site – there was a city there in the 1100’s, and the Toltecs were one of the major powers in the area from about 700 CE and for about the next five hundred years. They were displaced by the Aztecs, upon whom they had enormous cultural and religious influence. There are also several museums, an archeological library, and some research facilities working over the site. It’s quite the deal, and I spent a lot of time there.
Here’s something you might find interesting, and which illustrates why you should not judge one culture by the standard of another culture. There is (or was) a Mesoamerican ball game played throughout the area, and it had more than a sporting significance. There are, if I recall correctly, two courts for this game in the Tula complex. When the game was played in a religious context (not properly transliterated, but reasonably close), at the end of the game the head of the captain of the winning team was cut off and thrown down a well. Not the captain of the losing team, the captain of the winning team. While I understand the background and the reason why, I leave it as an exercise to the student to dig this one out for yourself.
This is rank insanity by modern US standards. It makes perfect sense if you study Toltec culture and religion which by the way makes a fascinating read. Good luck with your Ph.D. dissertation.
The above comments are generic in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
Thanks for the insightful non-parochial comments Anna.
Jf I had a similar thought and thank you for articulating it. Perhaps the signaling system was field hacked to create a false clear on the theory that the resulting collision would be a diversion allowing even more booty to be obtained.
Just asking: how was it possible for the second train to rear-end the first? Assuming there is no CTC on this line and train movements is controlled by some sort of track warrant, the second train would have to wait for the train ahead to release the block by radio before proceeding (release that obviously would never come since it was derailed). Didn’t anybody tried contacting the second train by radio?
Anna Harding – My point exactly – As you say, “There is nothing racist in this.” It is, however, perceived that way, as are so many other innocent remarks these days.
Mister Pins:
One of the first rules of ethnography is that you cannot judge the operation of one culture by the rules of another culture. Bizarre or unfunctioning one aspect of a different culture might be, the fact is that it is in that culture because it works. You have to look at the aspect in question in context and then it will make sense.
There is nothing racist in this. There is, however, a requirement that you keep an open, nonjudgemental, mind when examining the operation of a culture different from yours.
Take, for example, the Yanomami. To the outside casual observer they appear to be a highly paranoid, violent culture. But as you begin to understand how they think and how their culture works, it all starts to make sense – in the context of their society.
The Andaman Islands groups (those which are still extant) violently refuse contact with outsiders. To us this makes no sense – but we are not looking at it from the perspective of the Sentinelese, and to them I am quite sure it makes perfect sense. But what their thinking is I cannot tell you because only they know and they will not allow contact with the outside world. I wish them all the best.
It was the judging of the peoples of the New World by the standards of the conquering societies which led to, for example, the destruction of the Mayan Codices – which in my opinion was a crime that ranks right up there with the destruction of the Museum of Man in Baghdad during the Second Gulf War. The few codices which still exist are just enough to tantalize the hell out of us. Just think of what we could have learned from these people.
The above comments are generic in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
Mr. Dahlsten that was a great film clip!!
Anna – I agree with your cultural analysis, and if you think it through a bit more, there are ongoing issues with the merging of these cultures in whatever will become of “America.” You realize, of course, that both of us, in these politically correct times, will be branded as racists and can never hold elective office. So be it.