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Between July of 1891 and May 1892, the Mexican Land and Colonization Company, a British enterprise with a concession over the major part of Baja California's wastelands, laid 27 kilometers of rail of what was to be known as the Peninsular Railway with the expectation of opening up lands to cultivation and settlement, and attracting investment. But the train's starting point was San Quintin, a shallow bay ill-suited to becoming an important shipping port and, as far as the tracks had been built, led to nowhere. However, the objective of this paper is not to analyze the reasons for which the railway project did not come to a happy termination. Rather, it focuses on the controversies and conspiracies which surrounded its construction, arising from the struggle between the United States and Great Britain for predominance in Mexico's far northwest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]