The city of Puebla has numerous places that have been part of the history of Mexico. Railroads have been a key element in the growth of our country, creating national identity and priceless historical value, both for the engineering needed to build each machine, as the stations and human effort to lift the train tracks.
The Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos is located in the historic center of the city of Puebla, at the 11 Norte #1005. It is distinguished by preserve in its walls the history of railroads in our country.
It consists of what in its time was two stations: the Ferrocarril Mexicano Station, opened in 1869 by President Benito Juarez and the Mexicano del Sur Station, opened in 1880 and closed in 1920.
After Ferrocarril Mexicano Station closed in 1947 and in 1974 for the last time, its neoclassical building, and courtyards served as market and housing, until 1985 when the INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia) declared it as historic building and rescue work started to convert it into the Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos, which opened on May 5, 1988, today dedicated to the rescue, preservation, study and dissemination of Mexican railway heritage.
The restoration rescued the original distribution of the building. Were consolidated, overturned and painted the damaged walls, and replaced the damaged wood floors and ceilings, frames, doors and windows, respecting the original design. Shunting routes were modified to allow the showing of rolling stock, while the sheet metal roof covering the exterior was replaced by corrugated iron, similar to the original.
Today you can find more than 60 vehicles of different classes and ages, among which are 5 steam engines, five diesel and one electric : the Ferrocarril Mexicano 1001. Also on exhibition are two unique broad gauge steam engines, which are still in working condition: the 650 and the 1150.
The 650, broad gauge steam engine machine
The 1150, broad gauge steam engine machine.
Machines Alco DH-17 and DH-19 also protrude, both diesel-electric type PA-4, the only ones surviving complete and in chance of working from a batch of 200 machines that were built in the United States. It also features a first class English motorway, 74 seats, with Rolls-Royce engine capable of reaching a speed of 110 km per hour.
Museum visitors also have access to tow vehicles, including four cars scheduled passenger service, a cart and three presidential wagons. Besides charging units as cabooses, boxcars, a express car, two tank cars and a crane broad gauge steam, Browning mark of 86 tons.
Addition to the vehicles in the Museum you can also admire the tools that were used to build roads such as hammers, pliers, jacks, clamps, winches scantlings, compasses, crucibles and molds; representing operation are whistles, watches regulatory pocket, butaquería, encarriladeras, signal flags boiler and a thermometer. It also has office fixtures including ticket sellers, boards of train schedules, clocks, fire extinguishers, safes and copying presses, all to get an idea of how to work the railway environment.
In the part of communications, Museum has telegraph. telephone and telegraphones of various kinds, which indicate the evolution of this field.
The Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos also features his Centro de Documentacion e Investigación Ferroviarias (Documentation and Research Centre Rail), with a distributed document collection: specialized library, historical archive, library map collection and photograph library. The library consists of almost 26 000 copies among which is the first railway project on the railway line from Veracruz to Mexico City, 1837.
The Historical Archive consists of about 1200 square meters of documents pertaining to the daily lives of the various railroad companies that have operated in the country.
In the Map library saved more than 50,000 plans and maps from around the country. These documents are an indispensable reference source for rails history, as well as various aspects of architecture, engineering and national mapping.
The Museum’s Phototheque, with more than 70,000 pieces, is considered the most comprehensive photographic collection on the subject. The collection features a photographic survey conducted between 1926 and 1930 by the Comision de Avalúos e Inventarios de Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico (Commission of Appraisal and Inventory National Railways of Mexico). The fund consists of 135 photo albums and 98 negative packages that cover all the facilities that Ferrocarriles Mexicanos had in that period.
Currently, the Museum belongs to the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes and has expanded its impact and field work to acquire the status of Centro Nacional para la Preservación del Patrimonio Cultural Ferrocarrilero.
Undoubtedly, the Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos recapitulates the history of the train in Mexico, a corner full of nostalgia you can not miss in your next trip to Mexico.