Our attention turns to pure freight--and to a very different México. It is July 6, 1995, as a southbound FNM train waits in the yard at Cuauhtémoc on the steppes of central Chihuahua. This city, named after the last Azetc ruler, is the trade center of a bountiful agricultural region inhabited by 75,000 Old Low German-speaking Mennonites, who began a migration from the Canadian province of Manitoba in 1922. The grain elevator advertising Coca-Cola in the background is a Cuauhtémoc landmark.

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Photo © 1995 Chris M. Palmieri