El Tren Fantasma (The Ghost Train)

BBC Radio 4
Saturday 30 Oct, 2010
20.02 – 21.00

Sound recordist and Narrator: Chris Watson
Producer: Sarah Blunt

Press Release:

A thrilling acoustic journey across the heart of Mexico from Pacific to Atlantic coast using archive recordings to recreate a rail passenger service which no longer exists.

Ride the train from Los Mochis to Veracruz and soak up the atmosphere of Mexico in this immersive acoustic journey.

It’s more than a decade since the Mexican State Railway System operated its last continuous passenger service across country. Sound recordist Chris Watson spent a month on board the train with some of the last passengers to travel this route. He was part of a film crew working on a programme in the BBC TV series Great Railways Journeys. Now, in this ARCHIVE on 4, based on the original sound recordings, the journey of the ‘ghost train’ is recreated; evoking memories of a recent past, capturing the atmosphere, rhythms and sounds of human life and wildlife along the tracks of one of Mexico’s greatest engineering projects.