Thanks to the due diligence of Mr John Skiba, who sent me this information, an article posted on http://www.trainweb.org by Mr Carl Morrison about the Copper Canyon passenger train shows the present day condition of the sugar mill and railroad equipment in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico.

Evidently, the mill in Los Mochis has been purchased by Coca Cola, and is being used again and upgraded. All four MdelP engines are stored on the plant grounds, although they look ratty, and many brass parts have vanished. #2 in still displayed without her tender (which was used for years behind #4), and with the Radley Hunter stack used on #4 when she was new. #4's original woodrack tender still seems to be sitting in the weeds where I last saw it 30 years ago. Engines #4, #6, and #7 with their tenders are all parked over the pit tracks from the old KCM & O enginehouse, which collapsed long ago. The water tank is still there, and so is at least one MdelP tank car, parked next to the first sugar mill building in Los Mochis, which contained the original cane grinder (again, when I last saw it 30 years ago.)

The Mexican Pacific was the last railroad in North America to use steam for freight service, which was not part of any museum or tourist type operation. The good folks who maintain RyPN have resurrected my article on the MdelP, which is now back in the articles section of this site.

Thanks again to John Skiba, and the many other RyPNers who have so kindly either sent me information about something interesting (of which I was ignorant), or else corrected me (usually courteously) in cases where I've been wrong.

THANK YOU COKE !!!! I will switch from drinking Dr Pepper from this day forward, as a way of showing my support.

MUCHO BUENO SABOR MdelP !!!!

Well, that's certainly great news to hear. Thank you both John and Sammy for sharing.

I spent a few days there in Spring, 1969 while still in the USAF. Had the run of the place once I visited the office and told them what I was there for. Good times.

Tom,

We sure are lucky to have warmed the seatboxes of both the Mexican Pacific and the FEGUA with our privileged butts !!!!

I can see this topic isn't starting a stampede, but if anybody besides us is interested, I think that writing thank you letters to the Coca Cola Company is in order. I think a letter writing campaign to save the railroad would have been futile, but since they have taken it upon themselves to try and do something to preserve the MdelP, maybe it wouldn't hurt to let somebody know that the outside world is aware of, and appreciates, what they're doing. Maybe we can get them to continue in this effort.

I just know that this report is sure a lot more encouraging than the last thread I started here on the MdelP.


VIVA Mexicano del Pacifico !!!

HOW ABOUT THAT !!! The *&%^%$#^*(^* report is dated TWO THOUSAND THREE. It looks we're back to SQUARE ZERO, meaning that if anybody knows the whereabouts of locomotives #4 and #6, I'd sure like to hear about it, probably others would, too.

MY BAD

It looks as if Coca-Cola put a large amount of money into building a bottling facility there. It is easily possible that asking around in the company hierarchy will give information about the rail 'assets' on the plant site, or other information regarding use of the area for 'our' kinds of purpose.

I suppose I really SHOULD go down there again. I would try Google Earth, but all it will do for me is shove ads where the sun don't shine....

PLEASE, I hope nobody blames my young friend for the out of date post I made. It was completely my fault for not doing my due diligence before wasting our forum's time and server space.

And thanks to everybody who hasn't rubbed it in....

I have Google Earth Pro with a lot of bells and whistles.

Send me more specific addresses or coordinates and I'll take a crack at it. Reminder that you may not like what it finds......

Plant location: 25°47'5.69"N, 109° 0'2.70"W. Looks abandoned. A good portion has been demolished for development including a Walmart. The 2004 image (earliest available) looks like there was still some activity at the plant with a few cars on a siding. All tracks out in the fields are gone. I don't know where the engine house is/was. Up to the 01/04/2006 image, off the southwest corner of the largest building, it looks like what could be three steamers. 03/15/2010 it appears they were moved close to Boulevard Centenario. 01/20/2014 they are gone and plant operations appear to be winding down. 04/07/2014 it looks like the plant is shut down.

Yeah, you're not gonna like this......

I went looking around the plant looking for some views in.

Near what would be the junction of Vincente Guerrero and Varsovia (west of that WalMart), I miraculously blundered into a "plinthed" loco behind the trees--as in, "Is that a freakin' steam loco cab minus tender back there?!?!?"

An hour of research later:
https://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocom ... splay=3986
https://www.steamlocomotive.info/showno ... ?Loco=3986

This loco disappeared from this spot sometime between May 27th and November 6, 2016. Where is it now?

That was enough of a time suck. Happy hunting the other three that are supposed to be in town.........

UPDATE: #2 is still parked in front of the Ch-P/Ferromex pasenger depot on the east side of town as of 2016......

Hideho!

I figured I'd chime in with what I could manage to find. As Mr. Mitchell stated, the 2 is on display, however, I didn't know that it was moved.

The 7 went on display at some point. She was placed on some type of stand without her tender.
Here the steamlocomotive.info page https://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive.cfm?Display=3988

Pictures of the 7 at: http://www.mochisonline.com/eventos/260114_locomotora.php#.U0Vyvq1dXuR

The 4 & 6 are still rotting away at the mill. You can still see them from google maps. Look for the big rusty blobs in the middle of the screen.

Try this link: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Los+Mochis,+Sinaloa,+Mexico/@25.7840282,-108.9995759,109m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x86ba2f42b635eac3:0xb624c34752328808!8m2!3d25.7904657!4d-108.985882

Sammy, I am so, so sorry for getting you hopes up.

Here's a link to the exact article in question: http://www.trainweb.org/carl/CopperCanyon2003/LosMochis.htm

Coke is okay and Dr. Pepper is just fine...
BUT NOTHIN' BEATS BIG RED!!!

Take care and be safe,
John

P.S. For those of you digging on steamlocomotive.info, the profile for 6 has a picture of 7 on it.

Please tell me what this line was connected to and where? I had a listing of railroads using "Pacific" in their names published in Railroad History last year and somehow missed this one. Any details of former names and connections would be appreciated.

With what I can assure you is total modesty, please let me suggest that my article in the RyPN articles section will tell you "Everything you always wanted to know about the Mexican Pacific, but were afraid to ask".

Unfortunately, it seems that my previous thread stating that the MdelP had been wiped off the face of the earth was pretty much right.

However, this thread was right in one respect --- The Mexican Pacific LIVES, if only in the hearts and memories of those of us who were fortunate enough to have "been there and done that"...

John, thanks as always for your interest and efforts. We just need about 10,000 more for everyone like you, and the future of railroad preservation would be assured.

Some updates appear to be in order.

Unless I'm missing something the locomotive on display at the Ferromex depot is NOT the #2. The #2 is/was a 4-6-0, the one of display is a 2-8-0:

https://goo.gl/maps/jom73Ea5LPp5HvX36

Which raises the question, where is the #2 now? EDIT: Found it! In early September 2016 crews moved the #2 about a tenth of a mile away from its former display stand, to temporary trackage built in the footprint of what had been one of the sugar mill's molasses tanks. A news story about the move indicated no final decisions had yet been made on its disposition, with the leading possibilities being either (1) selling it to raise funds for the former employees of the sugar mill, or (2) place it on display as a historical monument in the parking areas for the city theater and the Trapiche children's museum. The #2 is still in this temporary location as of the most recent Google imagery (12 December 2019).

In looking through Google Earth images I see that the locomotives were moved from next to the street farther back into the old mill site sometime between 12/30/2012 and 1/20/2014. The #7 was moved to the display stand in the middle of the street sometime during this same time period.

If the Google Earth dates are to be believed, the #4 and #6 vanished from where they had been inside the mill at the link provided in an earlier thread sometime between 8/2/2019 and 12/7/2019. This does raise a question for QJDriver....you posted on another thread on this board back on 4/5/2018 "Last I saw of #6, she appeared to be in the Chepe shop in Los Mochis, headed North, coupled up behind a Ferromex GP-38. #4 seems to have just vanished." While it appears both the #4 and #6 have indeed vanished, the dates of your earlier thread don't match up with the Google Earth dates. What date did you see the #6 headed north out of town?

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV