XALAPA, Mexico — Mexico’s president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, said Thursday it will take an additional 83 billion pesos ($4.4 billion) to complete the Maya Train and Interoceanic rail projects begun under current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Mexico News Daily reports that figure includes about 35 billion pesos ($1.86 billion) for infrastructure to make the Maya Train, currently a passenger-only operation, suitable to also handle freight trains. Necessary additions include intermodal terminals and freight yards.
Sheinbaum said at a press conference following a meeting with current and incoming governors of several states that the freight infrastructure work will take one to two years to complete.
Maya Train passenger service began last December — although operations clearly began with much construction unfinished — but a significant portion on the east side of the loop around the Yucatan Peninsula remains incomplete. Lopez Obrador, who initially promised the route would be complete in February, has most recently said it will be done by mid-September.
Meanwhile, the Interoceanic line connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, envisioned as a land-bridge alternative to the Panama Canal, will require another 48 billion pesos ($2.55 billion) to complete. Lopez Obrador was on hand for the start of passenger service on the 188-mile line between Salina Cruz on the Pacific coast and Coatzacoalcos on the Gulf last year [see “Mexico launches Interoceanic Train,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 23, 2023] but that route, too, remains passenger-only.
Sheinbaum said her administration will extend the Interoceanic line to reach a refinery in Dos Bocas, about 85 miles east on the Gulf Coast from Coatzacoalcos, and to the border with Guatamala — more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) from any point on the current rail line.
