Mexico will build passenger train lines to US border in an expansion of its debt-laden rail projects
Mexico's president says his successor is planning to build passenger train lines running from the capital to cities on the U.S. border
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s massive, debt-fueled passenger rail building program is not going to end with the administration of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but will instead double, he said Wednesday.
López Obrador said his successor, President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, is planning to build three passenger train lines running from the capital to some cities on the U.S. border. López Obrador and Sheinbaum agree she will build about 1,850 miles (3,000 kilometers) of passenger rail, double the amount he built.
Sheinbaum said the trains would be electric and would run at speeds of up to 100 mph (160 kph). Almost all of Mexico's current freight trains run on diesel.
Sheinbaum said she was planning to build a passenger line from Mexico City to the border city of Nuevo Laredo — across the border from Laredo, Texas — a distance of about 680 miles (1,100 kilometers) at a cost of about $22 billion. However, the cost of most recent railway projects in Mexico have ballooned far above initial estimates.
Sheinbaum said she was also planning a train line from Mexico City to the western city of Guadalajara, for about another $3 billion, and said that rail line could be extended to border cities like Nogales, across from Nogales, Arizona, or other border cities further west if there was time in her six-year term.
Sheinbaum's plan will involve army engineers directing private contractors to build passenger lines along the same rights-of way currently used by private concessionary operators to move freight.
That could involve moving the existing rail lines to make way for the new tracks,
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