MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Interoceanic train launched in Mexico

The Panama Canal “is already saturated,” AMLO said

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) on Friday inaugurated the new interoceanic railroad through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which will cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific and vice versa, and somehow compete with the 80-kilometer Panama Canal, which takes 8 to 10 hours to cross.

 The new line is expected to handle 300,000 containers per year by 2028. Cargo ships would arrive at the renovated ports of Salina Cruz or Coatzacoalcos, unload their goods, and take a train across the ocean to continue by ship.

“Trade with Asia has grown so much that another step is necessary” because the Panama Canal “is already saturated,” AMLO said. The train will connect the ports of Salina Cruz (Oaxaca) on the Pacific coast and Coatzacoalcos (Veracruz) on the Atlantic coast.

“This project has been dreamed of for centuries by authorities, kings, politicians, rulers; since the Spanish invasion, Charles V asked Hernán Cortés to find a passage that would unite the two oceans,” the president continued.

The section inaugurated this Friday is 227 kilometers long and can accommodate three classes of passengers. The train also crosses the states of Chiapas and Tabasco.

With the so-called Maya Train, also inaugurated last week, and the Interoceanic Train, the MoReNa leader also wants to develop the historically poorer south of the country. Both rail networks will be managed by the Secretary of the Navy. Project director Admiral Raymundo Morales explained that another rail line, from Coatzacoalcos to Palenque (Chiapas), is 41% complete and will be operational in June 2024, while Line K - from Ciudad Ixtepec (Oaxaca) to Ciudad Hidalgo (Chiapas) on the border with Guatemala - will be operational in the fourth quarter of 2024. The project includes the rehabilitation of 1,197 kilometers of track on the three lines.