Chepe Railroad 

The engineering marvel that is the Chihuahua al Pacifico (ChP) railroad, taking almost 90 years and 90 million dollars to complete, was originally the dream of a utopian who came from Indiana with hundreds of colonists to farm the fertile lands along lower Rio Fuerte. Albert Kinsey Owen was granted a concession in 1880 by the Mexican government to start construction, but by 1894, when the colonists gave up their venture, no track had been laid.

 Still, the idea of connecting Chihuahua, from the U.S. border to the Gulf of California port of Topolobampo, had taken root, and a series of speculators bought and sold rights from 1900-1914, laying track in both directions. No one, however, could figure an economical way to surmount the problem of crossing the rugged, gorgeous terrain of the Sierra Tarahumara.

 In 1940 the Federal Government bought the eastern portion of the railway and construction westward of Creel began in 1943. The government purchased the western links in 1952, and in 1961 the Chihuahua al Pacifico line was complete. As anticipated, it opened new vistas for commerce, tourism, and mining, as well as providing accessibility to and from remote areas of the mountains and nearby canyons.

 The government sold Chepe to a private firm, Ferromex, in 1998, which invested in a modernization program to bring to tourists the experience of first-class travel on one of the world’s premier train rides. At present it is the only passenger line in Mexico.