Houston to Nuevo Laredo - Riding KCS on the TexMex Railway

The first half of this video shows the newly reconstructed former SP Macaroni line to Victoria and the connecting lines to Robstown. The second half shows the Texas-Mexican Railway, a line running east-west from Corpus Christi to the Mexican border at Laredo through the southern tip of Texas. Historically, the land between the rivers Nueces and Rio Grande has had as confusing of a state identity as that of its ecosystem. Is it coastal plains or is it desert? The United States, or Mexico? With its mesquite brush and pecan trees it closely resembles Tamaulipas and for its demographics it very nearly is. For farming purposes the land itself is almost useless without modern irrigation and was unable to support as much as a cotton crop until the early 20th century. Despite this, it was the dispute over control of this territory and which of the two rivers was indeed the international border that would lead to the War of 1846, the subsequent US invasion of Veracruz, and the capture of Mexico City in 1847.

A hundred and seventy years later, the buffer zone that Mexico had desired to retain to defend itself from further US annexation now serves the same purpose for Central Texas to protect itself from increasing cartel violence in Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, and Coahuila.

Shown in the last ten minutes of this video are the border cities of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, where I spent several days trying to decide if I wanted to ride south to Monterrey on KCSM and then north to Eagle Pass on Ferromex. A major cold front blew in the day I arrived, and by the time I left the temperatures had reached near record lows. I was very fortunate for this inconvenience, as just over a year later riding north from Monterrey I would be pulled from a train and held hostage by the Cartel Del Noreste at the KCSM Sanchez Yard 20 km SW of Nuevo Laredo. Had it not been for a friend that was accompanying me, I likely wouldn't have made it out alive.

Видео Houston to Nuevo Laredo - Riding KCS on the TexMex Railway канала RanOutOnARail