Mexico Railway expansion: Can trains transform Latin America? (youtube.com)
Workers spend up to 1000 hours per year sitting in traffic making this 60km commute between their city (or 1m people) and Mexico City. What is the math for the total?
The 45 minute rail trip on the elevated passenger train built by Chinese engineers.
Mexico's older railways had a peak building period of 1880 to 1910, when the Mexican Revolution stopped a lot of development. In the 1990s rails were privatized (consessions to Canadian and US railway companies) but this didn't attract as much investment as planned.
In 2018 President Obrador fast tracked/ de beurocratized rail infrastructure. There is a loop train around Yucatan that connects with Central Mexico. Sheinbaum says she will continue the rail development, using public funds. Her 3 year project will connect Mexico City with a city 3 hours north, and after that, the idea is to continue building north, to connect Mexico's factories with buyers in Canada.
A railway option (taking 8 hours from Atlantic to Pacific) is to be a competitor to Panama for global freight.
Mexico is mountainous, and the country can't easily just build a straight line flat rail, like is possible in the US or China. Engineering and economic challenges. Land rights also complicate. Rural community ownership. Security issies. 'Different kinds of institutional arrangements have to be reached.' If just one of the thousands of land owners doesn't agree, how can the plan move through?
Obredor declared rail projects issues of 'national security' to get past the rights of property owners. This is the reason building happened fast during his reign.
Flushing out the development, even if the rails are built, will require industrial parks, repair, storage, energy, infrastructure. Secondary infrastructure is required to suppor the railways.
Mexico doesn't have the engineers, etc, and rely on third parties.