When it comes to trains, this six-year period paints itself, although it will only leave 3,500 kilometers (km) of railway tracks for passenger trains out of the 18,000 km promised. While for the freight rail service, a public policy that encourages an increase in the participation of the railway compared to motor transportation continues to be required.
“It has not moved for years, remaining at a level of between 25% and 26 percent. Neither in previous administrations, nor in the one that concludes, has this public policy been designed to encourage the use of the means of transportation that, today, is the most efficient, safe and sustainable,” mentions Juan Carlos Miranda Hernández, general director of JCMIC, railway consulting company.
According to the Railway Transport Regulatory Agency (ARTF) , the Public Railway Freight Transport Service reached a historical record in 2023 by moving 131.48 million tons , an increase of 2.3% compared to 2022, although with an accumulated growth rate of just 0.60% from 2017 to 2023.
While the Mexican Railway System experienced an increase in its extension, going from 26,914 km in 2022 to 27,732 km last year. This growth is mainly attributed to the incorporation of infrastructure projects such as the Maya Train and the Mexico-Toluca interurban train .
Miranda Hernández states that “the rail transport mode had, in general, good progress” during the six-year term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which, among other actions, was promoted by nearshoring , but also non-traditional markets, such as intermodal and automotive, “have been the engine of growth. It remains clear that the concession model for rail freight transportation has been successful, with accumulated investments since 1997 of more than 14 billion dollars, with infrastructure, equipment and technology comparable to those prevailing in the United States and Canada. However, during this six-year term there were three negative effects.”
These, he specifies, are due to the construction of the Mayan Train and the reconstruction of the Tehuantepec Isthmus Railway (FIT) , in which the already reduced cargo traffic in the south-southeast was completely paralyzed towards Tabasco, Campeche and Yucatán, and was seriously affected in Oaxaca and Chiapas, so recovering these traffics – and developing new ones – will be a challenge because users, when affected in their logistics chains, developed alternative solutions, some of them long-term or structural. . “Competitiveness in service and rates should be the key factor for the development of cargo in the south-southeast,” he indicates.
It also states that the blockades of the railways by third parties , particularly in Michoacán, Sonora, Chihuahua and Veracruz, among others, seriously affected the service. The most serious was in the Acámbaro-Lázaro Cárdenas corridor, in which there were blockages lasting more than two months. “The slow response of the federal and state governments affected the competitiveness of the port of Lázaro Cárdenas and the Lázaro Cárdenas-Nuevo Laredo corridor,” he recalls.
For his part, Benjamín Alemán Castilla, founding partner of Alttrac and former head of the ARTF, comments that, without cargo, it will be very difficult for the Maya Train to be profitable. “The president-elect has also spoken about the loading part, which is a vital component to aspire [1] for this subsystem to have a certain profitability,” he assures.
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