Pitchforks Grayson Currin called
El Tren Fantasma for "one of the best works of his career" with "an [sic] sonic adventure that consistently shifts from power electronics-like heaviness to the sunny-day delicacy."
BBC Musics Spencer Grady praised the album for "Watson's ability to create whole worlds, entire lifetimes in the listener's imagination, beyond the moment of recording, comes to the fore."
Musicworkss René van Peer also favoured the album with "[Watson] has painted fantastic, surreal images in sound."
AllMusics Ned Raggett reviewed the album with "it's a marvelous portrayal in miniature of the tensions between the 'natural' and the 'man-made'."
The Quietuss Luke Turner said it was a "haunting, powerful tribute and memorial to a marvel of engineering and the people who built, worked and travelled upon it." ==Personnel==