In the 1860s Porfirio Díaz fought Maximilian's troops to help end the Second Empire imposed on Mexico by the French. He was President (read "Dictator") for 31 years. His regime ended in 1911 during the Mexican Revolution, which his excesses had brought on. His governing style was described as pan o palo—bread or stick. Your choice, presumably.

He wasn't all bad. He industrialized Mexico and brought it into the 20th Century. He recognized one of Mexico's principal dilemmas, saying "Poor Mexico: So far from God and so close to the United States."

But one of his signature achievements, the Mexican railroad system, became his bête noire as Pancho Villa and others used it for rapid troop movements.

It was fitting then that Porfirio Díaz used a special train to make his escape to Veracruz where he sailed for Paris and exile. He had his very own train, you know. Sort of a rolling Air Force One.

His personal railroad car sits today beside a restaurant on the Querétaro Highway.

You can tell it's not an ordinary passenger car from the uneven placement of the windows. This one was built specially for someone who could afford it.

The lettering at the top of the car originally read "Nacionales de Mexico," the short form of the name of the national railway. Below the windows, the lettering tells us it was reserved for "management special services"—probably adopted for use by railroad executives after Porfirio Díaz was deposed.

This is a big car. Because of its size, and the need to not jostle its important passenger, top-of-the-line triple axle trucks smooth the ride. All the windows are operable and have screens (things you'll never find on an ordinary passenger car), so that when standing on a siding in mosquito country, they can be opened for cross-ventilation.

After all, this car was used for housing as well as for transportation. Here's a part of the galley.

The explanation for the liquor bottles is that the current owner uses the car as a party venue. Check out the old brass General Electric fan.

Paul Latours, seated here in the parlor, would have worn his wing collar and tails had he known we'd be invited inside.

Red velvet upholstery, marble-topped tables, etched glass mirrors—this conveyance was not for the common people.

There are two bedrooms, each with its en-suite bathroom. (A single shower is down the corridor.)

Those sinks are made from Monel, a nickel-copper alloy that I last saw used in the Horn & Hardart Automat Restaurant on 38th Street in Manhattan when I was thirteen years old.

An office for a secretary contains its own toilet and an ingenious fold-out vanity, also made of Monel.

A utility closet contains what we today would call a load center, manufactured by the Safety Car Heating and Lighting Company of New Haven, Connecticut. I don't think Mexico had the capability of manufacturing its own passenger cars at the time.

Those copper strips are knife switches, not used much anymore because it's easy to get a shock from one. You saw them in Dr. Frankenstein's electrical apparatus and, more dramatically, in the Titanic's generator room in the 1958 movie A Night to Remember.

In any other country, a railroad car of this historical significance would be in a museum. Queen Victoria's train is in the Railway Museum in York. This one sits alongside the Querétaro Highway, quietly deteriorating. I was lucky to find it.