Overview of rail transport and operations in Mexico
This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(January 2024)
Map of the Railway System in MexicoFormer Train Station, Aguascalientes, Mexico
Mexico has a freight railway system owned by the national government and operated by various entities under concessions (charters) granted by the national government. The railway system provides freight and passenger service throughout the country (the majority of the service is freight-oriented), connecting major industrial centers with ports and with rail connections at the United States border. Passenger rail services were limited to a number of tourist trains between 1997, when Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México suspended service, and 2008, when Ferrocarril Suburbano de la Zona Metropolitana de México inaugurated Mexico's first commuter rail service between Mexico City and the State of Mexico. This is not including the Mexico City Metro, which started service in 1969.
Map of first Mexican rail line between Veracruz and Mexico CityMexican Central Railway train at station, MexicoRebel soldiers moving by rail during the Mexican Revolution
Mexico's rail history began in 1837, with the granting of a concession for a railroad to be built between Veracruz, on the Gulf of Mexico, and Mexico City. However, no railroad was built under that concession.
In 1857, Don Antonio Escandón secured the right to build a line from the port of Veracruz to Mexico City and on to the Pacific Ocean. Revolution and political instability stifled progress on the financing or construction of the line until 1864, when, under the regime of Emperor Maximilian, the Imperial Mexican Railway Company began construction of the line. Political upheaval continued to stifle progress, and the initial segment from Veracruz to Mexico City was inaugurated nine years later on January 1, 1873 by President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada.
President Lerdo and his successor Porfirio Díaz encouraged further rail development through generous concessions that included government subsidies for construction.
Impacts of the Diaz Administration
At the beginning of his first term Díaz inherited 398 miles (640.5km) of railroads consisting almost exclusively of the British-owned Mexican Railway.[1] By the end of his second term in 1910, Mexico boasted 15,360 miles (24,720km) of in-service track, mostly built by American, British and French investors.[2]
From a small start, the railway network expanded significantly, linking many parts of the country previously isolated. The Interoceanic Railway linked Mexico City to the port of Veracruz; the Monterrey and Mexican Railroad linked that northern city with the Gulf Coast port of Tampico; the Southern Pacific of Mexico linked west coast cities from Guaymas to Mazatlan; the Sonora Railway linked Nogales to the port of Guaymas; and the Mexican Central Railroad went north to the U.S. border at El Paso, Texas.[3] The British invested £7.4 million in railways during the decade of the 1880s, jumping to £53.4 million in 1910s. The decade-total of new investment in mining went from £1.3 million in 1880s to £11.6 million in 1910s. Investments in land and other properties rose from near zero in 1880s to £19.7 million in 1910s. The totals reached £135 million, almost as much as the United States.[4]
In the late nineteenth century, railroads were becoming symbols of centralized power, political and monetary, in Mexico. The institution of rail systems in the country required new regulations and legislation for residents and railroad development.[5] There was great debate surrounding the early railroads in Mexico, regarding how much they were truly improving the country. Scholars view the rail systems as simultaneously encouraging rapid economic growth and commercial relationships while displacing the population and creating widespread poverty within the sectors that were run by the rail systems. Porfirio Díaz had developed his country but at the expense of his people. Much of the criticism levied toward Díaz regarded his rapid modernization in a country still rebuilding from its internal conflicts.[5]
Growing nationalistic fervor in Mexico led the Díaz administration to bring the bulk of the nation's railroads under national control through a plan drafted by his Minister of Finance, José Yves Limantour. The plan, implemented in 1909, created a new government corporation, Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM), which would exercise control of the main trunk rail lines through a majority of share ownership.
Nationalization
Ferrocarril Nacional de México, incorporated in Colorado in 1880 as Mexican National Railway, was built on narrow-gauge railroad tracks under the instruction of General William Jackson Palmer of the Denver and Rio Gange Railway. The main line from Mexico City to Nuevo Laredo was constructed using the 3-ft narrow gauge tracks.[6] From Saltillo, Coahuila to Concepción del Oro, Zacatecas, the FCNM built narrow-gauge tracks in 1903 to service mining operations.[7] A likely reason for this, aside from General Palmer’s preference for the narrow gauge in use of mining, is that narrow gauge is more cost efficient.[8] In 1901, however, the tracks began conversion to standard gauge.[6]
The rail system deteriorated greatly from neglect during the period of the Mexican Revolution. Following the Revolution, the entirety of the Mexican rail system was nationalized between 1929 and 1937.
During the 1950s, the Yucatan Peninsula experienced successful development as it integrated into the national network.[9] In Oaxaca, on June 26, 1958, union workers from the Sindicato de Trabajadores Ferrocarrileros de la República Mexicana (STFRM), led by railroad worker and union activist Demetrio Vallejo, began a series of strikes seeking higher wages. When their demands remained unmet, a system-wide strike was called on January 18, 1959. The strike escalated on the afternoon of January 25th when Ferrocarriles Nacionales (the National Railway) officially began their strike action. By 10 a.m. the following day, an agreement had been reached that included medical care for workers' families, higher wages, and an allocation of 30 million pesos for the construction of affordable rental housing for the workers.[10]
In 1987 the government merged its five regional railroads into FNM. During the later period of national ownership, FNM suffered significant financial difficulties, running an operating deficit of $552 million (37 percent of its operating budget) in 1991. Competition from trucking and shipping decreased railroad's share of the total freight market to about 9 percent, or about half of rail's share a decade earlier.
Privatization
Map of Ferrocarril Mexicano system
In 1995, the Mexican government announced that the FNM would be privatized and divided into four main systems. As part of the restructuring for privatization, FNM suspended passenger rail service in 1997.
Bust of Jose Rendón Peniche who worked in the construction and then had charge the general direction of the first railway Yucatan, route Mérida-Progreso
In 1996, Kansas City Southern (KCS), in a joint venture with Transportacion Maritima Mexicana (TMM), bought the Northeast Railroad concession that linked Mexico City, Monterrey, the Pacific port at Lázaro Cárdenas and the border crossing at Laredo. The company was initially called Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana (TFM), but was renamed Kansas City Southern de México (KCSM) in 2005 when KCS bought out TMM's interests. KCS's systems in the United States and Mexico jointly form end-to-end rail system linking the heartlands of Mexico and the United States.
The Northwest Railroad concession, connecting Mexico City and Guadalajara with the Pacific port of Manzanillo and various crossings along the United States border was sold to a joint venture between Grupo México and Union Pacific Railroad in 1998 during the presidency of Dr. Ernesto Zedillo (which later occupied the position of Director of the Board of Union Pacific). The company operates as Ferrocarril Mexicano or Ferromex. Ferromex's freight volumes have increased; it hauled a record 22,365 million tonne-km in the first 6 months of 2010. Also, Ferrosur, the railroad serving Mexico City and cities/ports southeast of Mexico City, hauled their own record 3,565 million tonne-kilometers.[11]
There were two southern concessions, merged in 2000 to form Ferrosur. Ferrosur operates the line between Mexico City and the Gulf of Mexico port of Veracruz. In 2005, Ferrosur was bought by Ferromex's parent company. KCSM challenged the acquisition and the merger failed to receive regulatory approval. However, in March 2011, a tribunal ruled in Grupo México's favor, and the merger was permitted.[12]
President Enrique Peña Nieto proposed a return to services of intercity trains. His administration's proposals included the Toluca–Mexico City commuter rail, which successfully launched construction in 2014 and went into service in 2023. They also included the Tren Maya, which would run throughout the Yucatan Peninsula, and whose construction eventually began in 2020, and a Mexico City-Querétaro high speed rail line.
A consortium of China Railway Construction Corporation, Prodemex, Teya and GHP was awarded the contract to build the Mexico City-Querétaro high speed rail, at a cost of $3.75 billion dollars. However, the contract was cancelled the following year due to a series of corruption scandals.[16] In 2015, Mexico opened a new tender, which was again revoked, leading to the Mexican government paying China Railway Construction Corporation a 1.31 million USD indemnification.[17] The project was revived in July 2023 as an extension of the Cuatitlan commuter rail, when the Mexican government signed an agreement with Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railroad to study the viability of a passenger rail line from Mexico City to the city of Queretaro.[18]
In September 2018, President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced a US$7.4 billion plan to build a tourist and freight railway on the Yucatán Peninsula. The project, named the Tren Maya, began construction in 2020 and will connect Palenque to Cancún, but remains controversial with environmentalists and indigenous rights activists.[19][20] The new service debuted in 2023 and marked yet another chapter in the intercity revival.
In January 2022, the Mexican Secretary of communications and transport approved a 180 Kilometer rail expansion in the Durango-Mazatlan corridor. It has an estimated cost of 1.2 billion dollars to revive and expand the abandoned corridor under a private-public partnership with the company Caxxor Group, as part of the USMCA agreement.[24][25][26][27]
Ferromex is a private rail consortium that operates the largest railway in Mexico with combined mileage of 12,100 kilometres (7,500 mi) and is often classed with North American Class I railroads.
The Tren Suburbano is an electric suburban rail system in Mexico City. It is operated by Ferrocarriles Suburbanos with concessioned trains from Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF). It was designed to complement the extensive Mexico City metro system, Latin America's largest and busiest urban rail network.
Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México was Mexico's state owned railroad company from 1938 to 1998, and prior to 1938, a major railroad controlled by the government that linked Mexico City to the major cities of Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros on the U.S. border. The first trains to Nuevo Laredo from Mexico City began operating in 1903.
The Ferrocarril del Sureste, commonly known by the syllabic abbreviation Ferrosur, is a railway that serves the southeastern regions of Mexico. The company was formed in 1998, following the privatization of Mexico's railways. Ferrosur won the concession to operate the southeastern railway, which includes the line between Mexico City and Mexico's busiest Gulf of Mexico/Atlantic Ocean port at Veracruz. Grupo México has owned the company since 2005. There are long-delayed plans to merge it with the company's other railway, Ferromex.
The Interoceanic Railway of Mexico was one of the primary pre-nationalization railways of Mexico. Incorporated in Great Britain in 1888 to complete an unfinished project and compete with the Mexican Railway, it completed a 3 ft narrow gauge main line from Mexico City to Veracruz in 1891. Branches included Mexico City to Puente de Ixtla, Puebla to Cuautla, Atencingo to Tlancualpicán, and a cutoff between Oriental and Santa Clara. Through subsidiary Mexican Eastern Railroad, the Interoceanic acquired a branch from San Marcos to Teziutlán in 1902, and in January 1910 it began operating the Mexican Southern Railway from Puebla to Oaxaca under lease. The Mexican government acquired control of the Interoceanic in 1903, and subsequently sold it to the National Railroad of Mexico in exchange for ownership of that company.
The Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec(Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec, S.A. de C.V.), also known as Tren Interoceánico, Line Z, Ferrocarril Transístmico or simply Ferroistmo, is part of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, owned by the Mexican government, that crosses the Isthmus of Tehuantepec between Puerto Mexico, Veracruz, and Salina Cruz, Oaxaca. It is leased to Ferrocarril del Sureste FERROSUR.
The Ferrocarril Sonora–Baja California is a former railroad line of Mexico that built the line from Mexicali, Baja California, to Benjamín Hill, Sonora in 1948. It interchanged with the Southern Pacific Railroad at Calexico, California, and with the Ferrocarril del Pacifico in Benjamin Hill, Sonora. Before 1960, The SP-controlled Inter-California railroad provided trackage rights for the SBC from Pascualitos to the International Border. SBC took control of that part after the demise of the Inter-Cal.
Rail transport in Peru has a varied history. Peruvian rail transport has never formed a true network, primarily comprising separate lines running inland from the coast and built according to freight need rather than passenger need.
Guatemala has a network of 914 mm narrow gauge railroads, passenger and freight trains currently run.
Rail transport in Costa Rica is primarily under the stewardship of Incofer, an autonomous institution of the state. Incofer owns the national railway infrastructure and operates virtually all freight and passenger services, which consist primarily of commuter trains through the highly populated Central Valley. The whole Incofer network is 1,067 mm narrow gauge, although there are several small tourist railways of other gauges.
Rail transport in Puerto Rico currently consists of a 10.7-mile (17.2 km) passenger metro system in the island's metropolitan area of San Juan. Its history can be traced back to the mid-19th century with the construction of a limited passenger line in Mayagüez. Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Puerto Rico's rail transport system expanded significantly, becoming one of the largest rail systems in the Caribbean at the time thanks to an economic boom in agriculture industries, especially the sugar cane industry. The rail system was expanded to include passenger travel with a direct line from the island's northern capital of San Juan to the western and southern cities and towns, greatly improving travel and communication within the island. However, the entire system was soon overshadowed by the arrival of the automobile, and by the 1950s was completely abandoned. Small remnants of this system still exist in some parts of Puerto Rico, some conserved for tourism purposes.
Rail transport in Central America consists of several isolated railroad lines with freight or passenger service. The most famous one is the Panama Canal Railway, the oldest transcontinental railroad in the world, connecting Panama City with Colón since 1855. Other railroads in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama were built by private and public investors mainly to facilitate the transport of local agricultural produce to export markets and harbors. Their market share and profitability went into decline in the second half of the twentieth century and most lines have been decommissioned by the end of the 1990s. As of 2018, railroads operate locally in Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama only; all rail transport has been suspended in Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The railways still operating do not cross national borders.
The General Bartolomé Mitre Railway (FCGBM), named after the former Argentine president Bartolomé Mitre, is one of the six state-owned Argentine railway lines formed after President Juan Perón's nationalisation of the railway network in 1948 and one of the largest of Argentina. The six divisions, managed by Ferrocarriles Argentinos were later broken up during the process of railway privatisation beginning in 1991 during Carlos Menem's presidency.
The General Manuel Belgrano Railway (FCGMB), named after the Argentine politician and military leader Manuel Belgrano, is a 1,000 mmmetre gauge railway and the longest of the Argentine system. It was one of the six State-owned Argentine railway companies formed after President Juan Perón's nationalisation of the railway network in 1948.
Buenavista Station, also called Buenavista Terminal, was a passenger train station in Mexico City. The station opened in 1873 and since 1909, the station was fully operated by Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México. The station was closed in 2005. By June 2008, the station was replaced by the terminus of the Tren Suburbano commuter rail service.
The Coatzacoalcos–Palenque Line, also known as the FA Line, is a railroad owned by the Mexican government, connecting Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, and Palenque, Chiapas. It was leased to the Ferrocarriles Chiapas-Mayab company.
The Interoceanic Train of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is a government-owned railway system in Mexico that has 3 lines. It seeks to become a global logistics network focused on the manufacture and movement of goods between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
References
↑ Bazant, Jan (1977). A Concise History of Mexico from Hidalgo to Cardenas 1805–1940. New York: Cambridge University Press. p.111. ISBN0-521-29173-9.
↑ Fred Wilbur Powell, the Railroads of Mexico, 1921
↑ Coatsworth, John H. Growth Against Development: The Economic Impact of Railroads in Porfirian Mexico. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University 1981.
↑ Tenenbaum, Barbara A. and James N. McElveen, "From speculative to substantive boom: the British in Mexico, 1821–1911." in Oliver Marshall, ed. English speaking communities in Latin America (Macmillan, 2000): 51–79, at p 69.
1 2 Van Hoy, Teresa Miriam (2008). A social history of Mexico's railroads: peons, prisoners, and priests. Jaguar books on Latin America series. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN978-0-7425-5327-9.
↑ Álvarez, Samantha; Minsk, Todd R. (March 2005). "Mexico's National Railway Museum". Journal of Transport History. Vol.26, no.1. Manchester University Press. p.112. ISSN0022-5266. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
Coatsworth, John H. "Indispensable railroads in a backward economy: the case of Mexico." Journal of Economic History 39.04 (1979) pp: 939–960. in JSTOR
Coatsworth, John. "Railroads, landholding, and agrarian protest in the early porfiriato." Hispanic American Historical Review (1974) pp: 48–71. in JSTOR
Knapp, Frank A. "Precursors of American investment in Mexican railroads." Pacific Historical Review (1952): 43–64. in JSTOR
Lewis, Daniel. Iron Horse Imperialism: The Southern Pacific of Mexico, 1880–1950 (University of Arizona Press, 2007)
Matthews, Michael. The Civilizing Machine: A Cultural History of Mexican Railroads, 1876–1910 (2014) excerpt
Miller, Richard Ulric. "American railroad unions and the national railways of Mexico: An exercise in nineteenth‐century proletarian manifest destiny," Labor History 15.2 (1974) pp: 239–260.
Powell, Fred Wilbur. The Railroads of Mexico (1921)
Van Hoy, Teresa. A social history of Mexico's railroads: peons, prisoners, and priests (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008)
Donovan, Frank and Kerr, John Leeds. Destination Topolobampo: The Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway (Golden West Books, 1968)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
