By Juan Montoya
When Raul Besteiro died, his casket was carried aboard a two-engine convoy of locomotives that belonged to the Brownsville Rio Grande Railway that has its depot at the Port of Brownsville.
"Mr. B," a big railroad guy, was hired as port director partly because of his love for model trains and the intricate toy railroad he kept in his playroom. He was once featured playing with his trains just before he was named port director after he had retired as the superintendent of the Brownsville Independent School District. Apparently, the port trustees were so impressed with the deft skills he exhibited with the toy track that he was the natural choice to run the shipping port. Go figure.Just after he and Solomon Ortiz were pictured on the front page of the New York Times tallying votes and pushing for the North America Free Trade Agreement in Washington, the Bridge to Nowhere $21 million scandal broke out and Mr. B's fortunes dropped like the money did into Dannenbaum's Engineering in Houston through transfers to money exchange houses in Mexico.
Anyway, after his death, the linear park on the old abandoned railroad right-of-way was established and a red caboose with the lettering "In Memory of Mr. B, Raul Besteiro" was placed next to the Brownsville Museum of Art.
A friend of mine and I were speaking to the point on one of those Farmers' Market days (a Saturday morning) and a passerby overheard us. It turned out that the guy eavesdropping on us idle chatters was none other than a training engineer at the port who disabused us of the idea that Raul was entombed in the little red caboose.
So, there. Hopefully that will stop the endless speculation that Mr. B. is in the caboose once and for all.
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