The Maya Train railroad, which connects cities and towns in the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, is now fully operational.
Exactly one year after passenger trains started running between Campeche and Cancún, President Claudia Sheinbaum on Sunday inaugurated sections 6 and 7 of the 1,554-kilometer-long railroad.
The railroad has stations in or near the cities of Palenque, Campeche, Mérida, Valladolid, Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Chetumal, among others, and passengers can access a variety of other tourist attractions including archaeological sites, cenotes (natural swimmable sinkholes) and beaches.
“The Maya Train is one of the great legacies of [former] president Andrés Manuel López Obrador,” Sheinbaum said at a section 6 and 7 inauguration ceremony in Chetumal that doubled as a celebration of the first anniversary of the beginning of operations of the multi-billion-dollar railroad.
“His tenacity, will, vision and love achieved this feat, to which we’re providing continuity with the same determination and dedication,” she said.
López Obrador inaugurated the construction of the Maya Train railroad in June 2020, promising at the time that the project would be finished in 28 months, or by October 2022.
However, the railroad — which was built by private companies and the Mexican Army — faced a range of challenges, including court rulings that temporarily halted work and ardent opposition from environmental groups, which have argued for years that the construction and operation of the railroad pose a threat to wildlife, subterranean rivers and the Maya jungle.
Accompanied by the governors of the five states through which the railroad runs and various federal officials, Sheinbaum on Sunday rejected claims that the construction of the Maya Train violated laws or had an adverse impact on the environment.
She, like López Obrador, asserts that the railroad will help spur much-needed economic and social development in Mexico’s southeast. The ambitious infrastructure project was carried out “with and for the communities of the southeast of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said in Chetumal.
“… Only here in Mexico can a railroad of more than 1,500 kilometers be built … in just four years. In other words, only here in our country can a feat the size of the glorious Maya Train be done,” she added.
“…The Maya Train tells the world that Mexico is a great nation that does great things every day.”
Sheinbaum traveled from Palenque to Chetumal on the Maya Train on Saturday, completing the journey across section 7 of the railroad between Escárcega and the state capital of Quintana Roo. She posted a 38-second clip of her experience to social media.
During the inauguration ceremony in Chetumal, Sheinbaum said that her government would “consolidate the Maya Train as the world’s greatest tourism destination.”
That was apparently a reference to both the train and the culturally rich and beautiful region through which it runs. The president praised the Mexican military for its role in the construction and operation of the railroad.
Sheinbaum also highlighted that freight trains will soon run on the Maya Train railroad. In addition, she noted that the railroad will connect to the the new Interoceanic Train railroad, which includes tracks across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec between Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz.
Óscar Lozano, director of the state-owned Maya Train company, highlighted that the railroad and its 34 stations are complemented by Maya Train hotels built by the army. The railroad, he added, provides access to archaeological sites such as Chichén Itzá and Uxmal as well as natural protected areas (including newly-created ones) and pueblos mágicos, or magical towns.
How much did the Maya Train railroad cost to build?
Sheinbaum on Sunday didn’t say how much construction of the Maya Train railroad cost.
However, “independent calculations” have put the cost at over 500 billion pesos (US $24.8 billion), the newspaper Reforma reported. The figure of US $20 billion has been cited in various media reports.
The total cost is much higher than the original 140-billion-peso (US $6.9 billion) estimate.
How many jobs did construction of the project create?
Lozano, the Maya Train chief, said Sunday that the construction of the railroad created more than 600,000 jobs.
Other government projects in Mexico’s southeast, including the Tulum airport and the Olmeca Refinery on the Tabasco coast, also created significant numbers of jobs in recent years, many of which were filled by long-term residents of southeastern states.
How many passengers traveled on the Maya Train in its first year of operations?
Just over 603,000 passengers traveled on the train between mid-December 2023 and mid-December 2024, according to the Maya Train company. That figure represents just 20% of the government’s 3 million target.
Only 33,547 of the 603,000 passengers — about 5.5% — were foreign tourists.
The government hopes that passenger numbers will increase now that people will be able to use the train to access virtually the entire Caribbean coast of the state of Quintana Roo.
Millions of foreigners fly into Cancún on an annual basis, many of whom spend most of their time in Mexico in Cancún or other coastal destinations such as Playa del Carmen and Tulum.
The operation of the Maya Train in a loop around the Yucatán Peninsula could help lure some of them away from the clubs and white sand beaches of Cancún, Playa and Tulum to more traditional tourist destinations and attractions in inland areas of the Yucatán Peninsula.
Published courtesy of Mexico News Daily. With reports from El Economista, La Jornada, Reforma and EFE
