The Interoceanic train started the first tests along the rehabilitated 212-kilometer road from the municipality of Medias Aguas, Veracruz, to the city of Salina Cruz, on the Tehuantepec Isthmus, which caused enthusiasm among people when they heard the traditional whistle of the locomotive.
The first journey of the freight train It carried 10 containers of cement and two tanks of hydrofluoric acid, enough weight for the new rails, sleepers, and ballast that were replaced last year after decades of neglect.
Last Monday evening in Matas Romero, an old railway town, the joy of its residents at the resumption of service was evident. They recalled that more than 25 years ago, after the privatization of the railway system, the steel giants gave up the main station.
The machine passed the rehabilitated stations of Medias Aguas, Matas Romero, Lagunas, Ixtepec, and Salina Cruz and passed important stations such as Mogoé, San Juan Guichicovi, LaChivela, and Asunción Ixtaltepec.
Photos and videos circulated on social media revealing the Isthmus towns’ enthusiasm for railroading, which they hope will boost the economies of their towns bordering the Coatzacoalcos to Salina Cruz route.
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The interoceanic corridor of the Tehuantepec Isthmus has its roots in the Porfiriato, when General Porfirio Daz inaugurated the ports of Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz and Salina Cruz, Oaxaca. The railroad connected both states to bring and transport goods from the Pacific to the east coast of the United States.
In 2019, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador included it in the National Development Plan, and a year later, he began rehabilitating the railroad tracks to increase the speed of goods transfer.
