First day in Mexico Nov 1975
I boarded a train in Nogales across the border from Tucson with a ticket to Tepic. I was planning to catch a bus from Tepic to San Blas to enjoy some time near the ocean. I decided to get a sleeper car since it was to be a rather long trip. Sometime in the middle of the night, my feet hit the wall of the car with a thud and the train stopped. Not knowing what was going on, I proceeded to get my sleep! The next morning the truth was revealed and our train had run into another train on a side rail as someone forgot to throw a switch. Our engineers were tragically killed and our engine was trashed. We remained in place for a day while a new engineer, new engineers, and some track was re-built. And this was just the first day!