Improving train service across Oaxaca’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec has been announced a few times in recent years but nothing much has ever come of them beyond the actual reactivation of the route earlier this year.

Today there was another announcement.

President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on a tour of the region today, pledged an investment of 1.1 billion pesos (US $58.55 million) next year in the trans-isthmus train project.

Speaking in Juchitán, where he was met by residents unhappy about the aid provided for earthquake reconstruction, López Obrador said the existing train moves at a turtle’s pace due to the poor condition of the track and curves in the mountains.

The new train will not only be faster but at some point in the future will provide a passenger service as well as freight, he said.

The route, between Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, on the Pacific coast and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, on the Gulf of Mexico, has frequently been described as a potential rival to the Panama Canal because of the freight it might carry from coast to coast.

Source: El Financiero (sp)