u/ilia_zhe

That evening I finally convinced Pablo to return to the station and try to leave once again. We needed to sneak our way to the right consist under the cover of darkness so that no guard would notice us. We settled beneath a lone sprawling tree near the fence. Around the perimeter of the station stood tall towers with cameras and floodlights. I found a weak spot where the concrete fence connected to the wire one. You could squeeze through there and pass directly beneath one of the camera towers, right through a blind spot. The problem was a deep ditch immediately behind the fence. It slowed our way into the station considerably. The only way to cross it was by helping each other.

A few hours later a southbound consist arrived at the station with open hoppers. You can’t just climb into a car like that without checking it first. You need to know whether there’s cargo inside. If the car is empty, you can’t ride in it, and getting back out without help is nearly impossible. That meant someone first had to secretly sneak into the station and scout the situation, to understand whether there was anything inside those wagons. My companion hates operations like this. So if I didn’t do it before sunrise, we definitely weren’t leaving anywhere.

— Pablo, I’m going to need your help. The ditch is too deep, I need you to give me a hand climbing back out. I want to go check what kind of cargo is inside those cars.
— Okay, man, — he answered, already half asleep.

Old tires were scattered beneath the tree by the roadside, drivers often changed ruined tires there. We threw several of them into the ditch so it would be easier to climb back out later. I squeezed through the hole in the fence, crossed the trench, walked directly beneath the cameras, and hid in the shadow of the nearest railcar. At that exact moment a railroad workers’ truck slowly rolled past me. It was carrying the new crew for the train that would take it to Torreón. Then I climbed across the next consist and immediately heard footsteps somewhere nearby. I had to hide on a neighboring grain hopper until the sound faded into the distance. After that I quickly climbed the ladder onto the consist I needed. The car was filled with chunks of stone. Not very comfortable, but good enough for the ride.

With the good news I returned to Pablo, and together we sneaked back into the station along the same route, climbed into the wagon, and fell asleep on the rocks while waiting for departure.

I heard a loud bang, as if someone had shut off the train’s brake line. The freight train immediately began losing speed. Just a minute earlier we had been spotted by the toughest railway security in Mexico — Multisistemas, armed with automatic weapons and trained to confront organized crime. They inspect cargo trains at every estación along our route.

Train robberies happen here almost daily.

Bandits jump onto the cars somewhere out in the mountains or the desert, where the train is forced to slow down. They cut the brake hoses or bleed the air from the brake line. Their main targets are usually polymer pellets — the raw material used to make plastic bags and bottles. The pellets are transported in grain hoppers and can be resold for good money.

It’s not easy to reach the site of an attack, but the gang vehicles are usually already waiting for the train in the right spot, giving them several hours to loot it.

Locomotive engineers usually lock themselves inside the cab, but sometimes criminals try to break in there too, threatening to shoot through the windshield. The windows are protected by metal bars, but those won’t stop bullets.

Private security checks the trains departing from the railway patio in San Francisco de los Romo. That was exactly where we had secretly boarded the freight train.

There was no way the guards could have jumped onto the moving train and shut off the brake line that quickly.

My companion, Pablo, was visibly nervous. And for good reason.

We decided to jump off the grain hopper and move into a gondola loaded with iron ore. It was filthy, and we’d have to ride under the burning desert sun for almost a full day, but it was a much better place to hide. The last thing we wanted was for security to throw us off somewhere in the middle of that scorched wasteland.

From a distance we spotted a garrotero — a railway crewman assisting the engineer — inspecting the space between the railcars.

“Did you stop this train?” he asked as we approached.

“No, no, we didn’t touch anything,” Pablo replied.

“Are you trying to rob the train? How long have you been doing this?” the garrotero demanded angrily.

“We’ve been traveling on freight trains for about ten years,” my companion answered, not fully understanding the question. For railroad workers on this line, a person walking between railcars is more likely to be a robber than a traveler.

We lost that train. After accusations like that, continuing the journey on the same consist would have been far too reckless.