Three years late and nearly three times over budget, a new railway tunnel has been officially opened in Manzanillo, giving the port much improved transportation capacity.

The federal Transportation Secretariat project was originally budgeted to cost 933 million pesos (US $50 million). Five years after construction began, the total has come to 2.5 billion pesos.

Transportation officials explained that costs rose due to the unforeseen construction and improvement of adjacent roads, relocation of Pemex pipelines and the modernization of existing railway infrastructure.

As well as boring the 450-meter-long tunnel, the department also built a new railway yard and bypass.

The tunnel is part of a larger project intended to allow for the swift movement of railway cars through the port city without affecting traffic or the public.

The tunnel and bypass will allow trains to go to and from the port 24 hours a day, with the result that the total amount of goods shipped annually from Manzanillo could triple.

Manzanillo is the main port for shipping cargo containers in Mexico, and moved 440,000 TEUs (the equivalent of a 20-foot container) in the first six months of the year, an increase of 5% over the same period of 2017.

In September, the Transportation Secretariat will begin an expansion of the port’s cargo handling capacity with the construction of a new dock for general and automotive cargo.

By the end of the year, Manzanillo will be capable of moving 44 million tonnes of cargo a year. Six years ago, its capacity was just 26 million tonnes.

Source: Milenio (sp)