Andrés Manuel López Obrador looks out the window. On the other side, miles of lush jungle. Leaning between two train seats, with disheveled hair and a white guayabera, the president says: “This is how other places in the country are seen.” “Here there are jaguars, deer, peacocks, armadillos, macaws… of all kinds,” he insists proudly. He is aboard the Mayan train, surrounded by journalists, on the journey he promised five years ago. This Friday, the president inaugurated his administration's star project, a modern but incomplete work that includes unfinished stations, depots and connections, as well as a convoy that barely exceeds 110 kilometers per hour and moves under the surveillance of helicopters became army. An unfinished train is the president's controversial tool to lift a region out of poverty.
The journey begins at 10:30 a.m. from the newly opened Santiago de Campeche train station. The president climbs into the first car and shares a table with Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval, Admiral and Chief of the Navy José Rafael Ojeda Durán, and businessman Carlos Slim. On board what López Obrador has owned in recent years is a delegation of secretaries, governors, soldiers and businessmen. Nobody wants to miss the premiere.
A passenger during the Maya Train's first trip on the Campeche-Cancún route. Monica González Islas
Layda Sansores travels in a single seat next to the President. A few hours earlier, the governor of Campeche had predicted what she believed was the origin of it all. It was 2014 and López Obrador had just survived a heart attack; On February 28th he climbed to the top of one of the pyramids in the Calakmul reserve and from there had a vision of connecting a peninsula full of jungle with a train, connected by a very delicate system of caves and cenotes. He imagined laying tracks where protected species live: “I'm sure that's where the legend of the Mayan train was born, there in the middle of the jungle, that's where the prophecy was born.”
The road through the following points – Tenabo, Hecelchekán, Calkiní, Maxcanú, Umán – is quiet. From the window, the bus stops look simple, with a finished facade, but behind them there are still excavators and workers at work. Nearly 100,000 workers were involved in completing this gigantic work, which will cross five states and be more than 1,550 kilometers long when it is completed in February next year. The operators, still wearing helmets and vests, record the convoy's passage. They greet with a smile, it is thanks to them and their marathon days that the train is running.
The train takes 1 hour and 50 minutes to reach Teya-Mérida, which is already in Yucatán. About half an hour less than the bus ride. The president's fans in the car celebrate it: Then it's worth it. In some sections the speed of the train drops to 45 kilometers per hour, but on most of the route it is around 110. This preliminary opening will not go much higher, says the director of the Maya train, General Óscar Lozano EL PAÍS . As it speeds up, it is expected to reach 160 kilometers per hour. Because not anymore? The Spanish speed limit, for example, reaches 300. The soldier explains that the road is prepared for this speed, but not the systems because that is not the idea at the moment.
The idea of the organizers is comfort and safety. The Maya train is comfortable and spacious. Its interior, decorated in shades of blue and green to “imitate the feeling of the sea,” is reminiscent of the interior of Spanish convoys, according to the company Alston, which is responsible for its production. It has large windows, a tray, a plug and a good backrest. This is included in the basic version, which costs 1,166 pesos per ticket per trip. More than 1,800 pesos if it is premium. They range from $70 to $100 in a region where more than 40% of the population lives below the poverty line. At some point a discount for residents was announced, but it has not yet taken effect. The president's goal is for the price to be “even a little” lower than the price of the bus.
The platform of the Chichén Itzá.Mónica González Islas train station
To Mérida, which is the only one of the major cities to also have inaugurated a branch line connecting the train to the center, there is no public transport to get there either from Campeche station (14 kilometers away) or from Cancún station (17 kilometers away). Until then – the jungle will become denser. The ceibas appear, the Yucatecan green. In the straight section of Tixkokob and Izamal, the President appears. Away from the morning protocol, López Obrador is optimistic.
—President, but the train is still missing, the entrances are not complete, say the journalists.
– Oh no, of course it’s missing. It's a little bit what happened to him [Aeropuerto Internacional] Felipe Ángeles, who said that not even the flies could stop, that there was only one lady selling tlayudas, since AIFA is already the airport that transports the most cargo throughout the country. But they are works that take time, like everything in life. We crawl and then walk until we run.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the Mexican government has already spent 400,000 million pesos on this project, almost three times more than expected. And another 74 billion still needs to be completed next year. López Obrador estimates that the train will reach “a break-even point” within three to four years. They currently assume that around 6,600 people will use this first stage every day. “We have to take care of the train,” he says.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador speaks to the media.Mónica González Islas
As the president speaks, the helicopters keep watch. Four of these military vehicles will monitor operations every day. There are also almost 3,000 National Guard members on the trains and in vans outside. “Security on land and in the air,” comments the President, explaining why he decided to take the project out of the National Tourism Fund and hand it over to the armed forces – as he has already done, for example, with 19 airports. “I thought, in order for the train not to be privatized, who would take it away more difficult or who would defend it more: communications? Fontature? Or defense,” emphasizes the president, “everything is thought of this way, it is not militarization, it leaves a national asset in charge of an institution that acts in a disciplined manner.”
As the president departs, the train passes Chichén Itzá and heads for its final stop: Valladolid, Nuevo Xcán, Leona Vicario and Cancún airport. It's raining outside, but dozens of neighbors stand on the bridges or near the tracks, keeping vigil to record the first journey of a train that they are told will change their lives.
People waited for the convoy to pass by to celebrate the Mayan train's first journey. Monica González Islas
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