On the Slow Track Into Mexico : Commerce: A tiny rail line helps feed that nation’s hunger for U.S. goods. But the woeful condition of the road is a barrier to the success of free trade.

SAN YSIDRO, Calif. — Look past the goats, cattle and pigs that stray onto the lone railroad track that heads south into Mexico from this city’s dusty railroad depot and you can see the impact that free trade portends for the United States and Mexico.

Each weekday morning, U.S. and Mexican customs agents unlock a pair of worn padlocks on the rusted gate that blocks the aging track between San Ysidro and Tijuana. After cars are inspected and paperwork is completed, an aging pair of San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad Co. diesel locomotives slowly move off on a daylong, 90-mile round trip into Mexico.

The SD&IV;’s cargo manifest varies by day. Early one morning in mid-October, more than 30 cars carried lumber from the Pacific Northwest, malt from the Midwest, liquid propane gas from Texas, lard from South Dakota and steel from as far away as Canada.

The tiny rail line bears witness to Mexico’s hunger for U.S. goods, hunger that could grow ravenous under the pending North American Free Trade Agreement. But it also illustrates some of the immediate roadblocks to free trade’s success: Mexican roads, rail lines and other infrastructure are woefully inadequate by U.S. standards and probably incapable of channeling a major infusion of goods into the interior.

History has proven that trans-border trade flourishes “only where people and commodities can get across the border the fastest,” said San Diego State University economics professor Norris Clement.

Mexico already means good business for the SD&IV;, which has served a handful of customers in Baja California since 1986. Nearly 75% of the 6,000 cars that the railroad hauled last year carried U.S. goods to Mexican customers, said SD&IV; General Manager Daniel Botello.

SD&IV; pays a surcharge on each car entering Mexico, but still can compete with truckers delivering to Baja California’s industrial customers. And certain U.S. commodities--lard, steel, malt and lumber--are competitive with goods hauled into Baja California from far-away suppliers in Central Mexico.

Tijuana residents use propane from the United States to heat houses, cook meals and power industrial machines. The Tecate brewery uses malt and corn sugar from the Midwest to brew that city’s namesake beer. Lard from U.S. meat-processing plants is packaged for sale to Mexican consumers. A mill in Garcia, outside of Tijuana, turns raw timber from the Pacific Northwest into finished products.

SD&IV; officials are banking on a boost if the United States, Mexico and Canada enact the North American Free Trade Act, which probably would eliminate tariffs and other trade barriers.

“Trade would flourish between the U.S. and northern Baja,” Botello said. “We’d have a tremendous advantage over trucks because we’re more cost-effective.”

But in order for SD&IV; to take advantage of the expected upswings in free-trade business, it somehow will have to overcome Baja California’s dearth of rail services and the rail line’s own aging track, home as much to roving livestock as to international transit.

The SD&IV;’s predicament “should serve as an alarm for San Diego and Tijuana,” said Nathanson, executive director of San Diego Dialogue. “People seem to think we’ll thrive given free trade, but the benefits will come only if we’re able to move goods across the border . . . and we’re not set up to do that in San Diego-Tijuana.”

For SD&IV;’s crew, the daily runs into Baja California are as much journeys into the past as trips into another country.

“This is a piece of history,” SD&IV; Operations Supt. Fred Byle said one recent morning as the train slowly picked up speed and moved along the aging railroad track. “This is the way American railroads operated decades ago.”

For starters, there are no electronic gates at railroad crossings in Tijuana and the surrounding countryside. Stop signs are widely ignored; a steady stream of pedestrians and vehicles cross the tracks at will.

Some risk-takers lose the race, with SD&IV; engines mowing down some vehicles at crossings. One death--a pedestrian who evidently fell asleep on the tracks--has occurred since 1986.

As the train crept along the track, it passed half a dozen pigs that grazed contentedly on weeds growing near the tracks. Minutes later, the crew nodded to a man herding several goats across the tracks.

A wandering horse stopped on the tracks a hundred yards ahead of the train, casting a wary eye. Eventually, the animal dashed off to safety, “proving once again that animals are smarter than people,” Byle said.

“This is a new adventure every day,” said Byle, who once escaped a charging bull by hopping aboard a boxcar.

Engineer William Dowd kept the train running at considerably less than 20 m.p.h., the maximum speed allowed within Tijuana city limits.

On several occasions, Dowd throttled down to a crawl in order to avoid hitting illegally parked vehicles and pedestrians who crossed at myriad street crossings and worn footpaths.

Fast-moving freights in the United States wouldn’t be able to maintain speeds on the coarser Mexican track, Byle said.

More than half of the railroad crew’s working day typically is spent shuffling cars onto sidings. In a painstakingly slow ballet, Down nudged the train forward and backward 21 times in order to deposit 14 propane cars and four steel cars at the appropriate sidings in Tijuana.

“It sounds easier than it is,” Byle said. “It’s like playing checkers except that you can’t pick your pieces up and down.”

On the return trip to the United States, Dowd slowed the train, rang the bell and blew the horn as pedestrians and motorists madly dashed across tracks during Tijuana’s rush hour. Fortunately, both Mexican and U.S. customs agents were at the gate when the train arrived. That isn’t always the case. On Columbus Day, the engines idled 4 1/2 hours on the Mexican side because customs officials were busy elsewhere.

On this day, a solitary customs agent quickly checked car numbers against the railroad’s manifest, and climbed into cars to check for contraband and stowaways.

When none were found, the train headed home. The padlocks were locked and the rusted border gate was closed.