Every great railroad has a distinct flavor. However, few railroads in the Western Hemisphere have more character than those in Mexico. The combination of the modern and ancient is more pronounced both on the rails and lineside. This creates an evocative blend of equipment, terrain, culture, and architecture — all of which is perfect for modeling.
Mexico’s railways were a mix of foreign interests, nationalized state-owned networks, and private mining railroads that are still in use today. As a bonus, it’s all interconnected with the rest of the North American rail network (meaning you won’t have to get rid of that Maine Central or Great Northern boxcar you like so much). Taking it a step further, there were many through passenger services from the United States direct to Mexico City into the 1960s.
Perhaps the best reason to model Mexico is the scenery: from lush tropical jungles in Yucatán, to unbelievable canyons in Chihuahua, to deserts that spill into the cerulean blue ocean in Sonora. You could model sleepy mountain towns in Jalisco, or bustling port cities on the Gulf Coast in Veracruz. My freelanced HO scale Alta-California Railway is set on the west coast of Mexico in the city of Guaymas. There, large red rock mesas loom over the port city, spilling into the Sea of Cortez. It’s as if Monument Valley was scooted west to Los Angeles. Besides the stunning natural landscape, the architecture is also beautiful and fun to model (see Craftsman Workshop, October 2022 RMC).
On the equipment side, things get even more interesting. In the steam era, rolling stock and locomotives built in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, and elsewhere all ran together. This blend makes for a remarkably fun variety and provides an interesting challenge to kitbash and modify equipment for Mexican service. Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM) or Ferrocarril Mexicano and other roads often purchased steam locomotives secondhand, many from the Nickel Plate Road, Norfolk Southern (original), Florida East Coast, Rock Island, Yosemite Valley and, of course, Southern Pacific. Modeling Mexican steam is possible by finding their U.S. model counterparts, superdetailing, and repainting them. The steam era lasted a decade later in Mexico, with the last main line runs taking place in 1968, and the narrow gauge lines continuing even later.
The colorful diesel era in Mexico is even easier to model, with numerous prototypes already on the market. On the passenger side of things, most of National Railways of Mexico’s (NdeM) fleet was acquired secondhand from the U.S., so once again, all you have to do is find the American model and modify it for running south of the border.
Mexico’s modern rail scene is also quite interesting. After decades of nationalization, the network transitioned to a state-owned concession system where the government still owns the track but privately owned companies run it. Today, that includes Ferromex and CPKC, which was created in 2023 by the merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern (meaning you have an excuse to run that Rapido CP 4-6-4 you just purchased on a whim).
When it comes right down to it, the possibilities of modeling the Mexican rail system are endless. Imagine modeling the Unidos de Yucatán, where ancient 4-4-0s hauled mixed trains past ancient ruins into the 1960s. Or the Copper Canyon on the Chihuahua Pacifico. You could have John Allen-style scenery with 8-foot-deep river canyons and bridges above where you walk and it’d still not be to scale! If you want some narrow gauge flavor, Mexico City had a 3-foot narrow gauge terminal station that would make a spectacular bedroom layout in HOn3 or On3. And the overbuilt, British-engineered Ferrocarril Mexicano in the east coast jungles with electric boxcabs would be an incredible subject for a model railroad.
For me, seeing photos of second-generation diesels alongside steam in the mid-1960s is what really fired up my interest in Mexican railroading, and I never looked back. Perhaps the biggest inspiration was John Signor’s excellent book on the Southern Pacific de Mexico, which helped me understand how the Mexican rail network operated. From there, it’s been a constant research dive to learn more and more, making friends along the way.
So if you’re looking for a new challenge, consider looking south. —Miles Callan
