Mexico Explores Proposals to Expand Passenger Railroad Traffic Using Freight Lines

The proposals came in response to a decree issued on November 20 by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador calling for a radically new approach to expanding passenger rail service in the country.

That decree said that the Mexican central government would soon be issuing concessions covering seven strategically selected passenger train routes, where train service could provide major economic benefits and ease other forms of traffic congestion in the country. Those seven routes are:

• Mexico City-Veracruz city-Coatzacoalcos
• Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA)-Pachuca–Tula
• Mexico City-Querétaro city–León-Aguascalientes
• Manzanillo-Colima-Guadalajara-Irapuato
• Mexico City-San Luis Potosí-Monterrey-Nuevo Laredo
• Mexico City-Querétaro city-Guadalajara-Tepic-Mazatlán-Nogales
• Aguascalientes-Chihuahua city-Ciudad Juárez

The president made the request for proposals while also warning those involved in private rail service of any kind that if there were insufficient viable proposals received, he might turn over the opportunity to one or more federal authorities to implement on their own.

The government, he said, could “grant titles of assignment to the Ministry of National Defense or the Ministry of the Navy given that they already operate the Maya Train and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec train.”

On January 16, Mexico’s Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications, and Transport (SICT) revealed they had received five solid responses to the request for implementation of the president’s decree. All would use existing freight tracks, greatly reducing the expense of creating the new transportation options.

Though the government did not name who the bidders were for the projects, but one company, Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) acknowledged it had submitted a proposal for consideration, apparently covering several of the routes named in the decree. CPKC has a history of strong interest in the country’s potential rail service business potential, having already invested heavily and currently controlling 24% of Mexican railway service. Last year the company also agreed to look at what might be required to create a new passenger train service linking Querétaro and Mexico City, and has been actively considering other ways to expand its market in the country.

Grupo México, the company which owns Ferromex and Ferrosur, and already manages 56% of the country’s railroads, is believed to be one of the other bidders.

President López Obrador has been a strong proponent of using rail travel to expand his country’s economy since he began his term of office on December 1, 2018. His signature achievement of this kind to date was the creation of “El Tren Maya”, the Maya Train, which surprised everyone with the speed with which it received approvals and funding, and eventual launch with passenger traffic starting for the first time just last month.

López Obrador is also responsible for driving through the Interoceanic Corridor rail line which will provide important transport connecting Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracrauz, in a new economic development project he also championed that involves the building of ten new industrial parks.

With the new bids in hand to create even more passenger rail service, the president believes he has an excellent chance at delivering on that broader promise of accessible transportation options before his term as president expires later this year.

“There are some [enterprises] that are going to participate. We’re working on it, but before we go we’re going to leave the project [approved, funded, and ready to go],” the president said in remarks delivered on January 16.

“Just imagine what [passenger train travel] means for the future,” López Obrador continued. With little added costs other than setting up the concessions and buying some trains, he said, this will singularly “reactivate the economy of the entire country.”

“It’s about having safe, cheap, non-contaminating transport in all of Mexico, at a national level. The only thing is we can’t start the project, but we can leave the general guidelines and blueprint,” he went on.

Rail is by far the most efficient way to move people and freight across land and its use should be greatly and responsibly expanded in every country as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, instead of pushing everyone to buy EVs that overload grids and power plants. We need to reduce energy consumption, not increase it, and increasing rail usage does that affordably.