The Mayan Train began operations this Saturday. After five years of waiting, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's flagship project has opened its doors to the public. The start has been rushed: one of the two trips from Cancún to San Francisco de Campeche has left five hours late, and another of the trips, in the opposite direction, has taken more than nine hours to complete the itinerary. Hundreds of people have boarded the train at its premiere, although the Ministry of Defense, responsible for the project, has not detailed how many. Passengers, who have come from states such as Colima, Puebla or Coahuila, celebrate the excitement of traveling by train again, some after decades.
Jaime Ramos still remembers when he was eight years old and he would get on the back of the train that connected Puebla with Oaxaca with his friends to avoid the conductor. They got off at the next station and started again. In his town, San Francisco Atepexi, the tracks were removed decades ago. “I haven't been on a train for 45 years,” says this retiree from the Cancún Airport station (Quintana Roo), who has made his vacation coincide with the inauguration of the project. Like Ramos, América Vadillo, 69, has brought her entire family, her children and grandchildren, to remember what she felt “when she was a child and traveled by train.”
The enthusiasm of the passengers has had to resist the five-hour delay of the train. Those in charge of the project have indicated as the reason that the convoy system had to be reconfigured, which had to leave at 11 in the morning – and it did so at four in the afternoon -, apparently due to the heavy rains of the previous day. They have declined to give much information and have pointed to the management of Alstom, the French company that manufactured the train at its plant in Ciudad Sahagún, Hidalgo.
While in Cancun travelers sought shade and fell asleep on the benches of a station where the work machines still ring, the Mayan Train staff and the companies present at the premiere—Oxxo, GoMart, Telcel, Subway—have distributed food, drinks and also souvenirs with the project logo to calm spirits.
Most of the passengers have endured the wait stoically and calmly. Many came from far away: Edna Gamboa and Mauricio Mendoza arrived from Bucaramanga (Colombia) to the inauguration of the train. “We have been waiting for ticket sales all year,” said the passenger, who assures that they will return next year when the entire route is complete. This Saturday, only a third of what will be the train's complete route has been launched. At the moment, there are 473 kilometers from San Francisco de Campeche to Cancún, with 14 stops in total. The complete Mayan Train includes five states, more than 1,550 kilometers and 34 stops.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has pushed to launch a stage before the end of the year, has assured that the complete journey will be possible at the end of February 2024. At the moment, even in this section – which includes part of 2, 3 and 4 – there are many unfinished parts. From the Cancún station itself, to garages and connections. For example, it is not yet possible to use all the stops on the route. Passengers can only get on and off in Cancún, Teya-Mérida and Campeche. Furthermore, none of the three stations are in the center of the city – but about 15 kilometers away – and only in Mérida has a branch been created that allows the connection.
In the case of Cancun, the Government is accelerating to have a route with the city's international airport, one of the most used in all of Mexico, as soon as possible, in a kind of trolleybus. Meanwhile, there are free shuttle buses that complete the stretch of a few kilometers between the station and the airport, because they have not yet arrived to pick up the taxis or the travel app platforms.
These inconveniences have not made a dent in the spirits of travelers. Luis Montes is from Guadalajara but he has been working as a train driver in Switzerland for years. He has used the winter trip to visit “the first great tourist train in Mexico” with his family: “Simply not depending on the car, or the bus, to get around is taking Mexico to another level of mobility.” Andrés Pérez, 29 years old, originally from Mexico City but now living in Tulum, argues in the same sense: “Right now, the options for moving around are few and dangerous,” he points out in relation to road accidents. “I'm going to take the opportunity to visit many areas that I don't know,” said the young man, who is staying in Mérida this weekend.
Tickets have a cost of 1,166 to 1,842 pesos, between 68 and 108 dollars, for complete journeys; but they drop between 600 and 750 for Mérida. At the moment, these partial routes can only be purchased at the station. From the Internet it only allows you to acquire the complete route.
Questioned about the project's shortcomings, López Obrador has said that it is only because of the beginning of the train, that it is a “process” that will be improved over the weeks of use. The president, who has rejected all criticism from environmental organizations and experts about the danger of deforestation and the construction of land on land as complex as section 5, above the cave and cenote system, has minimized any opposition to the project. : “They are minor problems, due to lawyers and pseudo-defenders of the environment who wanted to stop us, to not have the work done, but since there is the support and backing of an entire town, that is why we were able to finish.”
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