This old rail car sat on a spur near Madison and Hill on Saturday afternoon.
There was a battered old rail car sitting on a spur in Albany Saturday. When I got off the bike to take a look, I learned something I hadn’t known before.
The spur is at the end of a dead-end block of Madison Street just north of 12th Avenue, a block west of Hill Street.
It’s the remnant of a rail line that was abandoned many decades ago, but it’s still connected to the Union Pacific (former Southern Pacific) Albany yard. Now and then the railroad stores some rolling stock on that rusty track.
On the side of the last car in line Saturday, there was a plaque. From the looks of the car , it was made a long time ago.
And what it said on the plaque was interesting to me. It showed that the car was made in Mexico, in the town of Ciudad Sahagun.
The internet makes it easy now, and I looked up the words on that plaque.
It turns out that Sahagun, 95 kilometers north of Mexico City in the state of Hidalgo, was founded and settled in the early 1950s by the order of Mexican President Miguel Aleman Valdes.
It was founded as an industrial city, complete with factories and more than 1,300 houses and dozens of apartments for workers, plus shops, athletic fields, clinics and schools.
One of the first factories was the one that built this rail car, Constructura Nacional de Carros Ferrocarril SA, which was started in 1952.
The factory kept making rail equipment, including passenger carriages and locomotives, until 1991. Eventually it was sold. At one time Gunderson, the Portland rail car manufacturer, had operations there.
None of this may be all that riveting. But looking at that plaque and looking up what it said told me one little thing about Mexican history, namely the government’s drive in the 1950s to spur industrial growth.
You never know what you don’t know — until you look it up. (hh)
This is the manufacturer’s plaque that caught my attention.
Wonder where they make the “lone burger” and why it was memorialized here.
I really enjoyed this tidbit of information and history! Thanks for sharing.
Fascinating! It is a small world. Thank you for finding & sharing it…
Thanks for the history lesson Hasso. It’s often that we see things and wonder, what, where, why and never look further. Good lesson you present – it’s probably on the internet – look it up.
Thank you for that interesting history post.
Ditto to all that have replied to your rail car posting. Very interesting. Thanks, Hasso.
Whoever (Union Pacific?) owns that rail car now (and other rail cars that are abandoned) should let homeless people have access to them.
It’s not abandoned. Those cars all have stuff loaded in them.
It’s amazing how some of your stories just soothe people. Others seem to ignite a fire. Personally, I love the stories either way. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for this story
This rail car may be one of the only ‘first made’ cars from this town in Mexico in existence – is it a relic? That car has put on the miles! Maybe the town would like to know.
thanks for the interesting quick read. Never thought of looking for plaques.
Thank you for this.
We all need to be reminded of the past as we walk to the future