As the sleek new train pulled out of the station in Cancun and sped into the dense Mexican jungle, Mario Meneses held his camera to the window, capturing it all on video. The 61-year-old tour guide beamed with pride — and the sense that he was documenting history.
“You’ll see,” he told his family. “This train is going to bring people from all over the world.”
His sister Patricia, 63, scoffed. “How will this ever be profitable?” she asked, pointing to row after row of open seats. “It’s completely empty.”
How Mexicans feel about the Tren Maya (Maya Train) — a 1,000-mile railway that slices through the Yucatán — has a lot to do with how they feel about the man who built it.
The $30-billion train is the signature project of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who promises that it will become a major draw for tourists and an economic engine for southern Mexico. In many ways, it has come to symbolize the presidency of an ambitious, often divisive leader obsessed with cementing his legacy.
A populist leftist who vowed to put “the poor first” and correct historic wrongs against the Indigenous population, López Obrador hopes to be remembered as a leader who tipped the balance of power to the working class, away from the elites.
The train, he said, would pump resources into a region that had been overlooked. When it ran into obstacles — a ballooning budget, lawsuits warning that it threatened delicate ecosystems and ancient ruins — he plowed ahead with his typical stubborn resolve and disregard for democratic norms.
Click here to read the complete, original article by Kate Linthicum in the Los Angeles Times
Source: Los Angeles Times
