Mexico seeks to include CPKC in 3 train projects

Mexico is seeking to incorporate the newly created Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) rail operator into three projects, including two priority ones in the southeast.  

Following a meeting (pictured) between President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, US officials and CPKC executives in Mexico City, the government unveiled that it invited the company to participate in the 1,500km Maya train that will connect five states in the southeast and to the rehabilitation of the 300km Tehuantepec isthmus rail corridor between Oaxaca and Veracruz states.

However, during his morning press conference on Thursday, López Obrador also said that he asked CPKC to take over the Mexico City-Querétaro high-speed train that the previous government attempted to construct.

“They are going to analyze the proposal we made. We want to have a passenger train to Querétaro because the highway is saturated. It is no longer advisable to continue expanding. What we look for is an alternate route. It could be the railway, there was already a project, remember that it was canceled,” he said. 

The line was originally awarded in 2014 to a Chinese-Mexican consortium led by China Railway Construction Corp (CRCC). It was canceled the following year amid corruption scandals.

Also present at the Tuesday meeting was infrastructure, communications and transportation minister Jorge Nuño Lara, who unveiled in March that the administration was seeking to have CPKC take over the project.

Although details about other topics discussed were not mentioned, CPKC tweeted on Wednesday that it shared with López Obrador “exciting plans about how CPKC will grow commerce and prosperity in Mexico, the United States & Canada.”

In mid-March, US authorities approved the US$25bn acquisition of Kansas City Southern (KCS) by Canadian Pacific (CP), paving the way for the creation of CPKC and its Mexico-US-Canada rail link. 

The plan could further expand the new rail operator’s network, as its current lines only reach Lázaro Cardenas port in Michoacán state and Veracruz port.