Tren Interoceánico: Mexico Bringing Transit Back.

Rural Mexico is often not the place you think of when you think of upstart regional rail infrastructure. Unfortunately, Mexico has a long history of poor passenger rail infrastructure, having had no real intercity rail service since 1997 when the newly privatized Ferrocariles Nacionales de Mexico suspended them. However, in recent years under the Morena party, Mexico has begun an admirable process of reintroducing passenger rail to Mexico.

Initially, the government started with construction on the controversial Tren Maya, that encircles the Yucatan Peninsula and connects many tourist destinations with larger cities and ports to encourage community development. As interesting as it may be, Tren Maya is a story for another day. Today, we’re focusing on the much less reported intercity rail program under the name Tren Interoceánico.

Tren Interoceánico serves a very different purpose to Tren Maya. While the prior is built on the idea that tourist travel within the Yucatan is key to building local communities, and is priced accordingly with new stations constructed from scratch. TI is built with the purpose of using existing rail infrastructure and refurbished or more cost-effectively built stations to help transport local people across the Tehuantepec region (the isthmus between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean). It was built after Tren Maya, and unfortunately it has not achieved the same media notoriety despite serving a much more community oriented purpose.

Starting with Line Z, this railroad began service in 2023 operated by the Mexican Government in order to increase both passenger and freight railroad transport between the two coasts. This was, and is, achieved by improving the physical rail infrastructure and refurbishing stations along the lines, as well as constructing new smaller stations where they did not previously exist. The rolling stock that has been chosen by Tren Interoceánico, that is the types of trains they use, are trains accumulated from other railroads including former Amtrak coaches from the United States, instead of relying on new and expensive rolling stock. These decisions have allowed them to continue to open new lines in short order, with Line FA opening the following year, and Line K is in progress of being opened. It allowed the railroad to open service quickly to the passengers, in order to serve them sooner and to slowly improve the lines and rolling stock as time progresses, instead of spending a great deal of money at the start and running into financial troubles often encountered by other expensive rail projects. By taking this approach, the Mexican Government has largely corrected many mistakes undertaken with Tren Maya’s construction and operation, and has offered a service that can be both reliable, and affordable, to local Mexicans in the isthmus. By renovating the rails, instead of building new lines, they have also avoided much of the environmental controversies that new highways and new tracks often bring in Mexico, especially in the south of the country where the biomes are very sensitive to human activity.

There is unfortunately a lack of English language resources that discuss these critical infrastructure projects, especially in cases like Tren Interoceánico where the benefits of the train line are more felt by locals, than by international tourists, however this is certainly a train line worth investigating. Though there is not much to be stated except the facts of the line, such as the number of stations (18), number of lines (2), operating speed, or length, Tren Interoceánico is very deserving of more focus.

In this era with focus on environmental concerns and a woeful lack of infrastructure projects in the Global South, it is incredibly exciting to see a country like Mexico building these projects. As more and more Latin American countries focus on transit, such as the Metro in Mexico City, or the cable car systems in South America in places like La Paz, Bolivia, it means more and more transit is accessible to the local people. More people can travel to places with more economic and social opportunities without having to abandon their homes, they can access more resources without the burdens of car ownership. Albeit a brief newsletter today, we hope to revisit Tren Interoceánico in the future with more detailed deep dives. We must always remember, public transit should be a right for the people. People deserve to have access to transportation both for worker rights, social rights, and access rights. The era of lobbying from oil and automobile companies is hopefully slowly but surely coming to an end, and hopefully we are seeing the return to an era of accessible and affordable public transit. As Bogotá mayor Enrique Peñalosa is famously quoted, “A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation.”

In solidarity,

FurInform

Sources:
https://pasajerosinteroceanico.com.mx/inicio
https://interoceanico.mx/