The National Energy Commission (CNE) granted a 15-year permit to the Maya Train for the transport of petroleum products by tanker truck or semi-trailer by various means, although to do so it must comply with a series of regulations applicable to this activity .

According to the permit title, this activity will be subject to the Law of the National Energy Commission (LCNE), the Law of the National Agency for Industrial Safety and Environmental Protection of the Hydrocarbons Sector and its Regulations, among others.

Carlos Barreda Westphal, director of  Ferroviaria.mx , emphasized that the Tren Maya’s obtaining the permit to transport fuels is in accordance with the original project, which included a mixed rail operation for tourism and cargo, even with a connection to the Interoceanic Corridor.

“However, this does not mean that the state-owned company will begin operating these transfers in the short term, as it will first be necessary to comply with a large catalog of official regulations that apply to this very specific activity. These range from the most recent regulations on the use of geolocation devices and QR codes on tank trucks, to operational safety, the handling, operation, and functionality of all cargo-hauling equipment, as well as those related to the handling of hazardous materials, emergency response protocols, and more,” he explained.

The document specifies that, among other things, it must designate operators who meet the characteristics and technical requirements necessary to operate the vehicles, contract and maintain valid insurance against damages, transport the authorized products, to mention a few.

Barreda Westphal considered that the incorporation of this mode of transport will bring important economic benefits not only for the railway “which truly needs them, but also for the southeast of the country.”

“Specialized jobs will once again be created in the region due to the very nature of its operation. It will surely attract national and foreign investment specializing in logistics, and will also reduce tanker truck traffic on the main routes longer than 200 kilometers (km). However, the biggest challenge will be consolidating a safe operation combined with passenger transport service along the 1,500 km of the Mayan circuit,” he said.

It is worth remembering that in 2025, the federal government started the works for the construction of the freight infrastructure of the Maya Train through the Felipe Ángeles Engineering Group of the Ministry of National Defense .

This project includes 10 cargo complexes with five intermodal terminals: Poxilá, Progreso, Cancún, Palenque and Chetumal, four operations yards and a fuel spur interconnected through the 1,553 km of railway already built.

The first phase of the works includes the construction of the intermodal terminals of Poxilá and Progreso, Cancún and Palenque, as well as the construction and rehabilitation of a railway bypass and two branches between Mérida and Progreso, of 70 km of railway tracks, of which 40 km will be new construction and 30 km of rehabilitated tracks.

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El cargo Maya Train expands operations; obtains permit to transport petroleum products apareció primero en T21.

Business meetings through reverse missions, strategic participation in trade missions, as well as market diversification and prevention , are three key factors to face the challenges and opportunities of foreign trade towards 2026, considered Josefina Lombard, director of the Mexican Business Council for Foreign Trade, Investment and Technology Southern Region (Comce Sur) .

In an interview with T21, Lombard pointed out that the region, which includes Puebla, Oaxaca, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, and Tabasco, with extended support to Quintana Roo, Campeche, Chiapas, and Yucatán, faces a complex but full of possibilities, so the goal is to take advantage of its potential and position it on the global map .

Regarding business meetings and reverse trade missions, he explained that they promote these types of initiatives in which delegations of foreign buyers, such as those from California, USA, visit Mexico to negotiate directly with local businesspeople. This strategy reduces the entry risks for Mexican companies and seeks to select anchor states that will energize the region , such as Puebla, with its industrial profile, or Quintana Roo, one of the country’s main importers. In this way, these meetings become engines for strengthening the integration and growth of the south-southeast region.

Regarding the diversification of strategic markets, Lombard indicated that, while the United States will remain Mexico’s main trading partner, it is crucial to conquer new markets. In this particular case, he explained the potential for business opportunities with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) , a region with 20 million consumers .

“Mexico is not part of CARICOM, so, since we are going to do it through Belize, we are working on some agreements that will allow us to have a dual investment, both in Quintana Roo south towards Chetumal and in Belize, where companies arrive, set up a manufacturing part, the other part for packaging or finishing, and from there it is exported to Belize, it is an interesting agreement,” he said.

The director of Comce Sur also explained that infrastructure projects, such as the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Maya Train , can be the spearhead for the region’s development. She indicated that both projects aim to connect the area with development hubs and strengthen ties with Central America, promoting new trade routes.

Given the uncertainty surrounding the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and changes to the Customs Law, Lombard emphasized prevention. He stated that the Southern Cone Business Council (Comce Sur) is training companies on rules of origin and encouraging the participation of experts in negotiations to anticipate risks .

“The point is that the south-southeast region must keep moving, no matter what happens in the United States, in Europe, in China, the south-southeast region has to take advantage of every opportunity that comes its way and, strategically, use them for the benefit of each of the states,” he stressed.

Lombard sent a message to the region’s business leaders: “Don’t stay home, go out and find opportunities and diversify .” He also noted that the organization he leads will continue to promote international events, intraregional missions, and networking opportunities to increase the area’s visibility.

“If there’s one thing I’m very sure of, it’s that this will be a year of many opportunities, and not just anyone will see those opportunities; those opportunities are only seen through prevention, by being in the game, by surrounding ourselves with people specialized in foreign trade,” she concluded.

In the second quarter of 2025, the nine states under the supervision and support of Comce Sur registered exports of $9.262 billion , according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) . Regarding Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), the region accumulated $1.4498 billion in the third quarter of this year, according to data from the Ministry of Economy .

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El cargo Comce Sur charts a course to face next year’s commercial challenges apareció primero en T21.

According to the 2026 Federal Expenditure Budget Project (PPEF), 104.576 billion pesos (mdp) would be allocated for new trains in Mexico, if the Economic Package for next year is approved.

According to the document, the Mexico-Querétaro train would have an investment of 10.492 billion pesos, while the AIFA-Pachuca train would have an investment of 3.108 billion pesos.

The passenger train connecting the AIFA with Pachuca is 57.1 kilometers (km) long, with two passenger train tracks and three stations. The project will largely utilize the existing right-of-way of the H, HA, and HC tracks of the Mexican Railway System, and will use new right-of-way at certain points
required to achieve an optimized layout.

The text indicated that a disbursement of 14.386 billion pesos would be made for the Saltillo-Nuevo Laredo train.

The project will have a length of 363.1 km, and the train is expected to have five stops: two terminals, located at the ends of the route in Saltillo and Nuevo Laredo, and three intermediate stations located in Santa Catarina, Monterrey Centro, and Monterrey Norte.

While for Querétaro-Irapuato it would be nine thousand 344 million pesos.

The project will be 107.5 km long, and the train is expected to have five stops: two terminals, located at the ends of the route in Querétaro and Irapuato, and three intermediate stations
located in the municipalities of Celaya, Villagrán, and Salamanca.

These projects are classified as priority investment projects , making them among the flagship projects of the current administration, led by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

According to the document, investments in rolling stock would amount to 14.879 billion pesos; for right-of-way, 21.432 billion pesos.

Other railway projects include the Querétaro-San Luis Potosí train, which would have a budget of 9.076 billion pesos; the Irapuato-Guadalajara train, with 12.506 billion pesos; and the San Luis Potosí-Saltillo train, with 9.353 billion pesos.

For the Maya Train (trains, maintenance, and the Campeche train) , the federal government has proposed a budget of 30 billion pesos, making it the largest expenditure for railway projects in Mexico.

Other railway construction projects contemplated in the 2026 Economic Package include the Felipe Ángeles International Airport Interconnection (Lechería train) with 600 million pesos. Additionally, the Mexico-Toluca train with 7.408 billion pesos.

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El cargo Economic Package 2026: How much will the budget for railway projects be? apareció primero en T21.

The federal government announced that construction will begin this weekend on the Maya freight train in Yucatán and the Mexico-Querétaro train.

“On Saturday, we’ll signal the start of the train to Progreso , the Maya Train freight line that runs from the current line to Progreso, in Yucatán. On Sunday, we’ll go to Querétaro because we’ll also signal the start of the Mexico-Querétaro Train, which is already beginning construction under the direction of the Ministry of National Defense,” explained Claudia Sheinbaum, President of Mexico.

For its part, the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT) reported that the new passenger rail projects will connect more than 49 million people.

The proposed National Railway Plan will provide better connections for residents of the six metropolitan areas, 11 municipal metropolises, and 19 metropolitan areas through which the new rail routes will operate.

“The significance of the national railway project will be a key driver for regional economic development, with the potential to generate up to one million jobs in the country, significantly improving the population’s quality of life,” according to the initiative submitted by the Federal Executive to Congress.

It is worth mentioning that the Railway Transport Regulatory Agency (ARTF) detailed through the National Railway Plan that this year it began construction of more than three thousand kilometers of passenger tracks , which will connect Mexico City with Nuevo Laredo and Nogales.

In the first phase, four routes are planned: Mexico City-Pachuca, Mexico City-Querétaro, Querétaro-Irapuato, and Saltillo-Nuevo Laredo.

To this end, the right to use railways to provide public passenger transport services will be reinstated. “Since the sector was granted a concession in 1997, it has focused on freight services.”

“Under the current government, we seek to continue and accelerate the implementation of public passenger rail services, tripling the number of operational kilometers recovered between 2018 and 2024,” the initiative highlights.

Among the benefits, SICT noted, are reduced travel time between towns , greater safety on journeys, improved quality of life for the population, and a reduced carbon footprint.

It’s worth remembering that construction of the Mexico-Pachuca train began last March. The next steps will be the Querétaro-Irapuato train and the Saltillo-Nuevo Laredo train, which will begin in July. These four routes in the first package will total approximately 786 km.

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El cargo The government will begin construction of the Maya Train for freight and the Mexico-Querétaro train. apareció primero en T21.

The Senate of the Republic unanimously approved the reform to Article 28 of the Political Constitution, which considers passenger transportation by rail as a priority area for national development.

The joint committees on Constitutional Affairs, Legislative Studies, and Communications and Transportation, chaired by Senators Óscar Cantón Zetina, Enrique Inzunza Cázarez, and Alejandro Esquer Verdugo, respectively, approved, with 37 votes and without changes, the bill sent by the Chamber of Deputies.

In the ruling, they stressed that the reform is key , since it seeks to regain state control over the railways, specifically for the provision of passenger service, something that had been neglected since the privatization of the sector in the nineties.

To this end, it is specified that the Federal Executive may grant allocations to public companies or concessions to private individuals .

Senator Laura Estrada Mauro, from Morena, said that the proposal will not only activate the railroads for the return of passenger trains, but also to restore national autonomy and reverse the privatization promoted during the government of Ernesto Zedillo, that is, “railway transportation is returned to the people, as a fundamental pillar for the economic and social development of the country.”

For National Action, Mayuli Latifa Martínez Simón considered that the reform promotes mobility and contributes to the development of the various regions; however , the new government must conduct itself with legality and transparency in the construction of railway projects.

Carolina Viggiano Austria said that the PRI Parliamentary Group supports the constitutional reform; although, she stressed that they will monitor the impacts, technical and financial viability of future railway projects, so that “what happened (sic) with the Mayan Train does not happen again” , which was not transparent, increased its costs and has not achieved its profitability goals.

From the PVEM, Luis Alfonso Silva Romo considered that the railroads are an essential part of the “veins” that unite the country, but he regretted that the transportation service by that means has been privatized by people who, he emphasized, stopped seeing the people as “holders of rights” to see them only as “part of the market,” with which the benefits of using the railroad were lost.

Alejandro González Yáñez, from the PT, stressed that after the historic regression that the railway system faced during the Ernesto Zedillo administration, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador promoted the development of the south-southeast of the country with the Mayan Train, but with the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum “we are on the threshold of making Mexico an economic power.”

Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas, from Movimiento Ciudadano, highlighted that our country’s railway infrastructure, with more than 27 thousand kilometers of tracks, represents great potential to decongest roads , offer a safe and sustainable means of transportation, but, above all, to connect regions of the country that have been historically marginalized.

According to the transitional articles, the ruling establishes that the Congress of the Union will have a period of 180 calendar days, from the entry into force of the decree, to make the necessary adjustments to the corresponding secondary laws.

While private companies with concessions for freight rail transport may provide passenger rail services.

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El cargo Senate approves reform to reactivate passenger trains apareció primero en T21.

Although it was announced that cargo movement by the Maya Train would begin in September of this year, its proponents have now indicated that it will not start until 2026.

Brigadier General Alejandro Gómez Vargas, head of the Maya Train Coordination, Delivery, and Reception Center, stated that they will seek to transport fuel, steel, cement, grains, perishable goods, and automobiles.

“The train service alone would not provide all the resources for its maintenance, and of course, cargo service is considered to enhance the efforts of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to boost this transport from the ports of Coatzacoalcos and Salina Cruz, to and from the Yucatán Peninsula,” he mentioned.

He reiterated that cargo service will begin in 2026 and will be integrated into the ports of Progreso and Lerma.

It is worth noting that T21 published in April 2023 that Óscar David Lozano Águila, General Director of the Maya Train, stated that cargo would circulate on this infrastructure’s tracks in September of this year.

“We will gradually develop cargo capacity, but by September 2024 we will have everything necessary. We are interested in boosting the cargo coming from the Trans-Isthmus Corridor, and if we can join forces with the Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec, we will certainly generate business for the rest of the companies,” he commented at the time.

Gómez Vargas revealed that the project will include four multimodal terminals in Palenque, Progreso, Cancún, and Chetumal, as well as a corresponding number of yards in Escárcega, Pomuch, Valladolid, and Xpujil, and a railway operations center in Poxilá.

“For the service, it has been considered to generally provide 12 main locomotives, seven yard locomotives, and 550 cars. This infrastructure will constitute a robust system for transporting goods that will generate development and increase employment in the communities along the Maya Train route,” he said.

For his part, Rear Admiral Alan Tarcisio Cruz Saba, Director of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Railway (FIT), stated that when the Maya Train begins cargo operations, transshipment will occur in Bacalá, a municipality near Palenque.

He mentioned that by September, the railway line from Ciudad Ixtepec to Tonalá will be ready, so they will start transporting cargo from Coatzacoalcos or Salina Cruz to Tonalá.

Regarding the exchange of goods between Mexico and Guatemala, he said that meetings have already been held with representatives from this country.

“We have had conversations with the Guatemalan government and will be able to establish interconnection through the border. They have Tecum Uman and we have Ciudad Hidalgo. Guatemala’s tracks are now standard gauge, so we will be able to connect. The Tecum Uman yard has capacity for 17 cars, so we recommended expanding it to 65 cars,” he detailed.

He mentioned that the tracks dismantled from Line K will be donated to Guatemala to be installed along the 230 kilometers of tracks needed for the connection from Tecum Uman to Puerto Quetzal.

He reported that from September 19, 2023, to August 14, 2024, 102 trips have been made, moving 138,061 tons of various types of cargo, including sand, cement, clay, hydrofluoric acid, and corn, among others.

During an event organized by the Mexican Association of Railways (AMF), Alejandro Gómez Vargas detailed that the Maya Train will have 1,554 kilometers of track, 34 passenger stations, and various complementary business lines.

Additionally, the railway will feature 663 kilometers of double electrified track, seven electrical substations, confinement areas, service roads, viaducts, bridges, wildlife crossings, pedestrian and vehicular walkways, as well as grade separations.

He mentioned that there will be three types of trains: regular, long-distance, and tourist. Currently, the regular trains are already in operation, while the long-distance train is expected to start service in September or October.

He revealed that for passenger operations, they will offer packages on specific routes including those close to beaches, a colonial route, the Wonders route from Cancun to Mérida, the Caribbean route from Cancun to Chetumal, and the Archaeology route, among others.

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El cargo Cargo for the Maya Train “derails”; it will be until 2026 apareció primero en T21.

Dreaming costs nothing, says the popular adage. The state authority that manages the ports of Campeche, mainly focused on oil activity in the Gulf of Mexico, seeks to attract and trigger new investments in the next three years and thus become the logistics hub of the Yucatan Peninsula.

The Campeche coastline has seven ports that have historically been linked to the oil energy sector: Isla del Carmen, Seybaplaya, Lerma, Cayo Arcas, Ta’kuntah and Yúum K’aak Náab (these last two are rather tankers anchored in the sea that are used as storage and unloading terminals).

But the plan of the Comprehensive Port Administration (API) of Campeche focuses for now on the first two, where it is planned to carry out works to improve port service and attract a larger number of vessels with greater capacity, as well as various companies to install their production centers.

According to this port authority, with the economic resources that are being managed at the federal and state level in Isla del Carmen, dredging will be carried out to increase the draft of the navigation channel and the interior docks of the port to 4.0-4.5 meters ( m) current at 7 m.

“A situation that has suffered for many years and a social and business complaint from the sector is that it has been a port with a very low draft and depth, which has been considered a loss of commercial opportunities and greater development of investment infrastructure projects in the oil sector,” said José Adán Aguilar Marentes, commercial director of API Campeche, at a press conference.

The official said that the API is developing the executive project for the expansion, construction and rehabilitation of two more hectares that will be incorporated into the installed capacity of the port, and there will be more than a thousand new linear meters to be able to receive the new boats.

In addition, the API’s plan is for Isla del Carmen to capture part of the business that opens with the start of operations of the Dos Bocas refinery, in Tabasco , such as services and supplies of pipes, material, personnel, fuels, among others.

In the case of Seybaplaya, it is a port that became one of the gateways for the supply of materials used in the construction work of the Mayan Train -specifically sections 2 and 3-, but that will now also seek to meet the demand that will generate the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT) , part of the infrastructure projects that have been promoted in the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

El cargo Campeche’s Maritime Dream of Becoming a Logistics Hub apareció primero en T21.