El Chepe/ El Ferrocarril

In order to truly see the Copper Canyon, one has to ride on a train through the mountain range. There is one train, run by the Mexican Government: The Chihuahua Pacific Railway. (By combining "ch" and "p", they had the abbreviation "CHP" which in Spanish is pronounced "chay-pay", so over time the official brand name of the train company was changed to "Chepe" rather than try to use the letters as an abreviation.)


The train runs 673 km (418 mi), passing over 37 bridges and through 86 tunnels, rising as high as 2,400 m (7,900 ft) above sea level near Divisadero (the continental divide), a popular lookout spot over the canyons. Each one-way trip takes roughly 16 hours.

Bridge:


Us on the bridge:


16 hours is a long time to be on the train. We did 5 hours the first day, and saw not much of anything ;) The second day, we rode about 10+ hours, and the last 4 hours were dark. the train goes really slowly, likely due to old tracks and even older rail cars. So even on the flat, boring part, we were only going about 40km/25mi per hour. Unfortunately, there are only airports at the beginning and the end of the rail system, so we had to ride 9 hours of not much interesting to see the 7 hours of really great stuff. We were smart enough to take naps, eat in the dining car, watch movies, listen to podcasts, and read books during the 'boring' parts. I enjoyed the relaxation of the train nearly as much as the amazing scenery in the middle.

We could see great stuff from our window seats, and thanks to our friend Claire, who loaned us her camera, we also got great pictures through the windows. But since Mexico isn't one to really care about safety regulations, it was common for groups to congregate near the open windows of the space between the train cars and get amazing pictures. I hope that some safety department somewhere doesn't stop this practice. It was one of the better aspects of the ride.