Passenger Rail – Mexico Gets It, Why Doesn’t Canada?

Mexico’s politicians get it, to mitigate the effects of global warming and climate change, rail is the only option to reduce both personal and commercial vehicle use.

3,000 km of revitalized passenger rail route is ambitious, but at least Mexican politicians seem to understand the need of a modern passenger rail service, unlike their Canadian counterparts who stick with “carbon taxes” and electric cars as the way to fight global warming. Canadian politicians think spending over $15 billion for 21.7 km of rapid transit is OK, but $5 billion revitalizing around 400 km of passenger rail, is seen as a waste.

Sadly, Canada’s vacuous passenger rail strategy is focused on “High Speed Rail” (HST), with politicians and bureaucrats alike remain ignorant to the massive costs involved because in Canada, it is not about useful rail projects, rather it’s about photo-ops and ten second sound bytes for the evening news. Regional rail projects such as Rail for the Valley’s regional railway connecting Vancouver to Chilliwack via the former BC Electric Interurban line or the revitalization of the E&N railway on Vancouver Island are not just ignored but derided.

Canada is rapidly becoming a “Hermit State” with climate change and global warming with the philosophy that “Canada can tax climate change out of existence”, but doing little else. This expensive and ruinous philosophy is making Canada a backwater for real change and real change, which includes passenger rail, is needed.

Mexico’s new Prime Minister gets it, sadly our two contenders for Canada’s top job do not.

Incoming Mexican President commits to passenger rail revival

By Railway Gazette International10 September 2024

MEXICO: President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum has unveiled her ‘100 Steps for Transformation’ programme which contains the revitalization of passenger rail services on three major corridors, totaling 3 000 km in length.

The three services announced earlier this summer are among the seven routes totalling 8 000 km proposed for reactivation by outgoing President Andres-Manuel Lopez Obrador in November last year.

Sheinbaum was elected as Mexico’s President on June 2 and is set to begin her term in office on October 1. She has pledged to launch passenger services on three corridors in the first five years of her six-year presidency. Tendering for the infrastructure works is planned for the fourth quarter of this year and construction on some lines is planned to start in early 2025.

The programme stipulates that rolling stock procured for the three railway projects would have to be manufactured in Mexico. Currently, Alstom, CAF and CRRC have production sites in the country.

Serving the new airport

The first project to be implemented would be a 65 km route from the capital’s Felipe Ángeles International Airport, which was inaugurated in March 2022, to Pachuca, northeast of Mexico City. This service would be built on an entirely new alignment at an estimated cost of 20bn pesos. It is expected to serve eight municipalities in the densely populated area around Mexico City and relieve the congested road network.

It would be an extension of the 20 km greenfield line that is currently under construction between FAIA and Lecheria; this is scheduled to be inaugurated later this year.

Mexico City Tren Suburbano 1 (photo Railway Gazette)

The line to FAIA and Pachuca will branch off at Lecheria from the main line that links the Buenavista railway station in Mexico City with Cuautitlan. Services on the line to Cuautitlan are being operated by CAF.

Guadalajara and Monterrey

Passenger services are also to be restored on two existing freight-only lines. The longest would link Mexico City with Nuevo Laredo on the border with the USA via San Luis Potosi and Monterrey. The passenger trains would cover a distance of 1 143 km and implementation is expected to cost 400bn pesos.

The second route would link Mexico City with Irapuato and Guadalajara on a 581 km main line. The Mexico City – Queretaro section would be shared with services to Nuevo Laredo. The reinstation of passenger services on the Querétaro – Guadalajara section would cost 55bn pesos.

Freight train in Mexico (photo Railway Gazette) (1)

The government is currently studying if passenger trains in these corridors could share tracks with freight services after modernisation work has been completed, or whether new alignments would need to be built. This would be more costly but would allow higher speeds.

As required by the presidential decree published last November, freight concessionaires have been conducting technical studies to assess the feasibility of the restoration of passenger services on the selected routes and to define their own potential involvement. According to the decree, if private companies are not interested in the assessment and provision of passenger services, they will be able to maintain their freight operations, but the government could take over responsibility for delivering the passenger services.

The government is already overseeing management of the country’s two main line passenger projects. Tren Maya is being delivered through the Secretariat of National Defence, while the Mexican Navy is overseeing management of the Interoceanic Railway of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

CPKC operates and manages the Mexico City – Querétaro – Nuevo Laredo line and the Querétaro – Guadalajara section is managed by Ferromex.

Tren Maya and Trans-Isthimus extensions

The 100 Steps for Transformation programme also proposes extensions to the two major railway projects which have been developed during the Obrador administration. A 200 km extension of the Trans-Isthmus Railway would be built from the port of Coatzacoalcos in the Gulf of Mexico to the Dos Bocas port in Paraíso.

Trans-Isthmus Railway

A 50 km extension is planned to extend the Tren Maya route from Mérida to Puerto Progreso in Yucatán.

The government is also assessing construction of a new alignment to link Veracruz on the Trans-Isthmus Railway with Palenque on the Tren Maya network. Construction of various intermodal freight terminals is also envisaged on the Tren Maya network in order to allow freight traffic to use the

Comments

3 Responses to “Passenger Rail – Mexico Gets It, Why Doesn’t Canada?”
  1. Major Hoople says:

    After working in Canada and my experiences with Canadian bureaucrats and politicians I can say any sort of passenger rail is off the table, except for media friendly TGV trains, which seems to catch the politcans imagination.

    30 years ago we targeted over 30 potential routes that would support a regularly scheduled passenger service, but there was absolutely zero interest by poincianas, who only seem to support fabulously expensive TGV type services.

    This is too bad because the only alternative to a established passenger service is more highways. It was the threat of new highway construction that has resurrects the regional railway in Europe because financially, new highway construction is more expensive that a new passenger service using existing rails.

    On another note, it has been brought to our attention that the SkyTrain for Surrey folks have awakened from their slumbers. What fun, as they always provided a modicum of dark humour to the proceedings.

  2. Haveacow says:

    Mexico stands to do relatively well in the rail production side of things because when Bombardier bought out its national train maker, they (Bombardier) used it as their main North American parts supplier and sub-system assembly house. Although, the plant had quality and performance issues. Most were eventually solved. When Alstom bought out Bombardier’s rail products division, the Mexican plant was fairly safe. The majority of their production lines are small sub-system lines, not massive, complex and very expensive vehicle production lines. So as Alstom starts to pair down its vehicle model numbers only the vehicle production hubs are to be severely effected not its parts production facilities. On top of that, the Mexican plant also provides spare parts to many of Bombardier’s biggest selling products North American and world wide. Products like the Bi-Level commuter coaches and the Flexity LRV’s, both of which have over 1000+ and 3500 units sold respectively, all them, needing spare parts.

  3. Haveacow says:

    There are reasond to be hopeful. A bright spot for Regional Rail, if GO Transit’s massive service frequency expansion brings in the expected enormous increase in passenger numbers, it will be very hard to ignore. If Montreal can move EXO away from its REM and Covid induced cliff and create a new central line service with its remaining lines, then inexpensive regional railway sucsess is possible there.

    Ottawa’s Line #2 and Line #4 (Trillium Line and the Aiport Branch) as well as the newly reinstated Shinning Waters Railway from Peterborough to Union Station are relatively cheap and easy solutions.

    Even with its faults, throw in the UP Express for good luck after all, they did build a 4, soon to be 5 station, 24km Pearson Airport to Union Station DMU Line, with a mostly 15 minute service frequency, for under $500 Million.

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