It is a gigantic waste of taxpayer money.

Nomad Ash nothing was ever achieved by graft and corruption, bribery and bullying people not to mention ignoring the damage to the environment.

Alex, When a government builds a railroad that isn’t easy to get to or use and did a hatchet job on the environment you blame the people who would use it, if it was practical, but it isn’t most of the stations were built way out from the cities and the damage to the environment is only now being looked at.
Vanity projects are just that a waste to time and money. The money could have been used for other batter projects such as the Mexico City airport. Trains in the central highlands where most of Mexico’s population is located. Just, because you like kissing AMLO’s butt doesn’t mean everyone is going to give that socialist fraud a free ride. 500 billion pesos how much of that was stolen by the companies and politicians. Subsidizing transportation is another way of stealing tax money and also giving undeserving people political jobs.
I would say that the Mexican people have taken the bait hook line and sinker and no wonder the education system especially the public education system is a JOKE!! It is easy to pull the wool over the Mexican public’s eyes with such a low level of educational achievement here in Mexico!!

Yeah, you’re right! Mass transportation in the United States has failed, because it has to be a profitable, which it will never be.
They have to look at mass transportation like Europe does.

I’ll be coming to the Yucatán in a few weeks and was hoping to try the train but was surprised to see that the ticket price is based on who you are and of course foreigners are charged much more for the same trip. I’m fine paying a fair price that reflects the cost of the system but don’t try to rip me off just because you think you can. You will make more $ per passenger but get a lot fewer passengers.

The Maya train may eventually work as a freight transport system but it will take years before industries build up along the train route, destroying even more of the current environment.
If you want to make the current Maya Train successful as a passenger service, you must provide convenient and inexpensive (free?) transportation to the desired destinations from the distant stations. Taxi service in Mexico is notoriously corrupt. Taxi rates are made up on the spot. Perhaps Uber, Lyft or even a Maya Train Shuttle with easy service and low rates would work to increase passenger ridership. You could even include the fare in the price of a train ticket, so passengers would not feel like they are paying twice for the trip!

You are right on one point: it is a ‘world class’ waste of public money and will continue to drain the Mexican treasury for decades to come.

Hi Grant,

Ridership will almost certainly increase now that the entire railroad is complete and passengers can use the Maya Train to travel up and down the Quintana Roo coast. I wrote as much in the report:

“The government hopes that passenger numbers will increase now that people will be able to use the train to access virtually the entire Caribbean coast of the state of Quintana Roo. … The operation of the Maya Train in a loop around the Yucatán Peninsula could help lure some of them away from the clubs and white sand beaches of Cancún, Playa and Tulum to more traditional tourist destinations and attractions in inland areas of the Yucatán Peninsula.”

With regard to the Maya Train, there are certainly a range of opinions about the project and we have reported extensively on those different views.

I can assure you there is no “nefarious” objective in my reporting or any of the reporting you read on MND. We definitely want Mexico to succeed and hope that the Maya Train brings a lot of benefits to the country’s southeast.

Peter Davies

MND chief staff writer