On Saturday July 8th. the opening of Mexico’s ‘Tren Maya’ railroad system was inaugurated by president ‘Andrés Manuel López Obrador’; he was clearly impressed and was all smiles as he inaugurated one of Mexico’s most ambitious projects in decades.
The train network is approximately 1,000 miles of train-track forms a ring around the southern states of Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatan Mexico, is expected to have an average ridership of 8,000 passengers a day.
video courtesy: Grupo Reforma
The ‘TREN MAYA’ railroad was built to accommodate the growing tourism industry in southern Mexico , and will have a station/stop in Chetumal/Bacalar, just a few miles from Belize’s northern border.
Our Business-News article of January 7th. 2022 sheds light on the challenges that the project faced, and includes the technical details of the ‘Tren Maya’ project and how Belize may benefit from its existence.
About 2 decades ago Mexico launched an effort to improve and upgrade its entire public transport system; which included the rebuilding of bus-terminals and new buses; that effort saw the acquisition of hundreds of Mercedes-buses with AC, individual seats and video entertainment as standard equipment; and an expansion of the cities and towns served by ADO and other bus operators.
The ‘TREN MAYA’ railway system is an extension of Mexico’s public-transit system and is expected expand into other regions in the near future.
Started in December of 2018. the US$14-billion ‘TREN MAYA’ railway is Mexico’s flagship highspeed rail system that will enable more people to commute to other cities and states, and is also expected to ease the volume of cars on the highways in southern Mexico.
Mexico is a very industrialized country, with manufacturing plants from several large global industrial manufacturers ; adding to its growing industrial-technological resources is the joint ‘French-Mexican’ Alstom train-car manufacturing plant in the state of Hidalgo, just north of Mexico City which manufacturers the ‘TREN MAYA’ rail-cars.
As mentioned in our January 2022 article: “Belizeans often ask ‘how come Belize doesn’t have a train system’; The simple answer is that it is not practical for Belize, Trains and maintenance cost hundred’s of millions of dollars, and is not practical for our population. But!, there were several ‘short-railroads’ in Belize many years ago that were used to deliver citrus and fruits to ships near the Pomona Valley orchards, and there were railroads to transport timber and sugar cane to the factory.”
Belize should try to initiate projects and or collaborations to benefit from this new high-speed public transit system that is so close to our borders. There could be unforeseen opportunity for our economy in the north and or in tourism.
Written & Compiled by: channel1Belize.com / digitalBelize,LIVE Staff writer – Sunday, July 9th. 2023 – channel1belize@gmail.com