Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said the Mayan train line, one of his flagship infrastructure projects, will be complete in July next year and will enter service in December, business website Fortuna reports.
López Obrador described the $15bn project as the largest of its kind in the world, and said: “We are going to start testing the system, with trains that are already being built in Ciudad Sahagún by Alstom in July of next year … We will finish the 1,550km project in December 2023.”
He spoke while inspecting sections two and three of the line, which are being built by Mexican conglomerates Grupo Carso and Grupo Indi.
He said he would visit the works every 15 days to ensure progress.
The “Tren Maya” project is intended to entice tourists who come for the beaches of Cancún to venture into the Yucatán’s interior.
An estimated 27 million tourists a year arrive in the coastal resorts of Quintana Roo State, but only 2.7 million visit the Mayan sites of Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, Edzná and elsewhere.
The 16-station railway is also intended to cut the time and cost of moving people and freight and freight in the states of Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo.
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