MEXICO: President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum has unveiled her ‘100 Steps for Transformation’ programme which contains the revitalisation of passenger rail services on three major corridors, totalling 3 000 km in length.
The three services announced earlier this summer are among the seven routes totalling 8 000 km proposed for reactivation by outgoing President Andres-Manuel Lopez Obrador in November last year.
Sheinbaum was elected as Mexico’s President on June 2 and is set to begin her term in office on October 1. She has pledged to launch passenger services on three corridors in the first five years of her six-year presidency. Tendering for the infrastructure works is planned for the fourth quarter of this year and construction on some lines is planned to start in early 2025.
The programme stipulates that rolling stock procured for the three railway projects would have to be manufactured in Mexico. Currently, Alstom, CAF and CRRC have production sites in the country.
Serving the new airport
The first project to be implemented would be a 65 km route from the capital’s Felipe Ángeles International Airport, which was inaugurated in March 2022, to Pachuca, northeast of Mexico City. This service would be built on an entirely new alignment at an estimated cost of 20bn pesos. It is expected to serve eight municipalities in the densely populated area around Mexico City and relieve the congested road network.
It would be an extension of the 20 km greenfield line that is currently under construction between FAIA and Lecheria; this is scheduled to be inaugurated later this year.
The line to FAIA and Pachuca will branch off at Lecheria from the main line that links the Buenavista railway station in Mexico City with Cuautitlan. Services on the line to Cuautitlan are being operated by CAF.
Guadalajara and Monterrey
Passenger services are also to be restored on two existing freight-only lines. The longest would link Mexico City with Nuevo Laredo on the border with the USA via San Luis Potosi and Monterrey. The passenger trains would cover a distance of 1 143 km and implementation is expected to cost 400bn pesos.
The second route would link Mexico City with Irapuato and Guadalajara on a 581 km main line. The Mexico City – Queretaro section would be shared with services to Nuevo Laredo. The reinstation of passenger services on the Querétaro – Guadalajara section would cost 55bn pesos.
The government is currently studying if passenger trains in these corridors could share tracks with freight services after modernisation work has been completed, or whether new alignments would need to be built. This would be more costly but would allow higher speeds.
As required by the presidential decree published last November, freight concessionaires have been conducting technical studies to assess the feasibility of the restoration of passenger services on the selected routes and to define their own potential involvement. According to the decree, if private companies are not interested in the assessment and provision of passenger services, they will be able to maintain their freight operations, but the government could take over responsibility for delivering the passenger services.
The government is already overseeing management of the country’s two main line passenger projects. Tren Maya is being delivered through the Secretariat of National Defence, while the Mexican Navy is overseeing management of the Interoceanic Railway of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
CPKC operates and manages the Mexico City – Querétaro – Nuevo Laredo line and the Querétaro – Guadalajara section is managed by Ferromex.
Tren Maya and Trans-Isthimus extensions
The 100 Steps for Transformation programme also proposes extensions to the two major railway projects which have been developed during the Obrador administration. A 200 km extension of the Trans-Isthmus Railway would be built from the port of Coatzacoalcos in the Gulf of Mexico to the Dos Bocas port in Paraíso.
A 50 km extension is planned to extend the Tren Maya route from Mérida to Puerto Progreso in Yucatán.
The government is also assessing construction of a new alignment to link Veracruz on the Trans-Isthmus Railway with Palenque on the Tren Maya network. Construction of various intermodal freight terminals is also envisaged on the Tren Maya network in order to allow freight traffic to use the newly built network.
