The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo announced the investment of 157 billion pesos in 2025 for the construction of the AIFA-Pachuca and Mexico-Querétaro passenger trains; of the Saltillo-Nuevo Laredo and Querétaro-Irapuato sections, as well as to make the Maya Train a freight railway system; which will generate 70 thousand direct jobs and 140 thousand indirect jobs.
The Head of the Federal Executive said that the new railway systems and the adaptation of the Maya Train as a freight train are national development projects and are linked to the Wellbeing Poles that will be built during her term.
Sheinbaum explained that the objective is to build, with the support of military engineers from the Ministry of National Defense, more than 3 thousand kilometers (km) of passenger trains, which will be added to the more than 1,500 km that were built during the administration of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to generate employment and move the economy. She added that in December the commercial opening of the Palenque-Chetumal section of the Mayan Train will take place.
The Secretary of National Defense, General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, explained that to make the Mayan Train a cargo train, 10 cargo complexes will be built, made up of five intermodal terminals, four operations yards, and a fuel loading spur, all of them distributed in the main cities of the more than 1,500 kilometers of railroad tracks of said railway system.
The general director of the Railway Transport Regulatory Agency (ARTF), Andrés Lajous Loaeza, explained that the strategy for building passenger trains is divided into four phases:
- Phase 1 of 786 km: It includes the sections AIFA-Pachuca (54 km); Mexico-Querétaro (242 km); Saltillo-Nuevo Laredo (306 km) and Querétaro-Irapuato (184 km), whose works will begin in 2025.
- Phase 2 of 910 km: Querétaro-San Luis Potosí (263 km); Mazatlán-Los Mochis (441 km) and Irapuato-Guadalajara (206 km).
- Phase 3 of 1,145 km: Guaymas-Hermosillo (135 km); Guadalajara-Tepic (204 km); San Luis Potosí-Saltillo (444 km) and Los Mochis-Guaymas (362 km).
- Phase 4 of 552 km: Tepic-Mazatlán (275 km) and Hermosillo-Nogales (277 km).
Source: OEM
