The Mayan Train debuts and inside the San Francisco de Campeche station, this Friday is a “day of joy, of overflow.” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador enters a large building, still only occupied by soldiers, officials and journalists, to inaugurate the first stage of his flagship project. There are 473 kilometers between Campeche and Cancún, with 14 stations, of a project that will have more than 1,550 and that the president has described as “magnificent.” “We are not exaggerating. There is no work like this in the world today,” said López Obrador. On this “historic” day there is no room for environmental criticism, which the president has minimized as “politicking.” He has only insisted: “We should feel very proud, it is a very special day.”
The first station of the Mayan Train still looks like a set. With aesthetics and motifs from the Mayan culture, San Francisco de Campeche is 14 kilometers from the walled city. The accesses are still not clear, but another branch that will link this stop with the historic center has already been announced, without a date. In this bright building, the president has met with all those involved in this project, which will cost, according to the Ministry of the Treasury, 472,000 million of public money.
There is Layda Sansores, the governor of Campeche, who has assured that this is the most important work that has been done in the history of the region; the Secretary of Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, who has allowed General Óscar David Lozano, director of the Mayan Train, to speak, who has excitedly told López Obrador: “The road has been difficult, full of obstacles, which we have managed to overcome thanks to your iron will.” Representatives of the companies ICA, Alstom, the Azvindi consortium and the Carso group, in charge of this section 2 north, 3 and 4, also participated.
They, dressed in white guayaberas and them in embroidered dresses, all agreed on the main point of this inauguration: the president had promised that it would be on December 15 and so it has been. “We have worked hard to get to this day and we are ready. The deadline has been met,” said Lozano, “we are confident of achieving it. With this event we begin the pre-opening of the Mayan Train. With safety, comfort and high efficiency.” More than 2,800 members of the National Guard will monitor the route.
The train, which opens to the public on Saturday with two schedules, at seven and 11 in the morning, will go at 120 kilometers per hour. And it will take about six hours to get from Campeche to the Cancun airport. The price of tickets ranges from 1,166 to 1,862 pesos (from 68 to 108 dollars) and there are still no discounts for nationals. Regarding the cost, López Obrador has said that it will always be kept, “even if just a little”, below what the bus costs for that same trip, which is a minimum of 1,200 pesos.
Before getting on the inaugural convoy, the president has addressed possible recriminations: “I repeat, I'll tell you the note, this is a stretch, we are just beginning, as in everything.” López Obrador has given the following dates, the train will arrive in Palenque, Chiapas, on December 30; and for the complete route we will have to wait until the end of February 2024.
The first stage to be inaugurated has been the least problematic of the project from the beginning. Unlike the controversial section 5, from Cancun to Tulum, which has had to change routes three times due to the complexity of a terrain full of cenotes; or 7, which cuts through the Calakmul reserve. The environmental impact of the construction of the train has been a burden on the mega-project from the beginning. The deforestation of thousands of hectares of jungle, the destruction of mangroves, the foundations on very delicate soils such as the underground cave system and the risk to species have created a large environmental front against the Mayan Train.
There are more than 25 active injunctions against the project, but López Obrador has claimed this Friday that despite the magnitude of the project they have not had “problems in the construction, minor problems, by lawyers and pseudo-defenders of the environment”: “They wanted to stop us, that the work was not 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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