What next for the Maya train after the award of a key design contract?

Mexico's tourism board Fonatur awarded the contract to carry out the basic engineering design for the Maya train on Friday – a key step towards construction of the 1,452km passenger and freight rail line planned for southeastern Mexico.

The 299mn pesos (US$15.3mn) plus VAT bid submitted by a group headed by Key Capital and including Senermex Ingeniería y Sistemas, Daniferro Tools, and Geotecnica y Supervisión Técnica beat offers from another seven consortiums. 

The winning bid was one of only two offers that were considered to be technically feasible and which were considered for economic evaluation.

The contract is set to be signed within the next two weeks.

While Senermex is the local unit of Spanish engineering and technology group Sener, the other three firms are all Mexican. 

The selection of Senermex was met with some criticism given that the firm was in charge of preparing different studies for the Mexico City-Toluca interurban passenger railway, which has been seriously delayed and is millions over budget for various different reasons, including alleged lack of planning. Some of the work Senermex was tasked with doing included topography and soil mechanics, among others. 

Based on the tender documents, a review of the central government’s database of sanctioned providers and contractors showed that none of the firms comprising the winning consortium had been barred from participating in public tenders or signing contracts with local and federal authorities.

Launched in May as the first public tender for the Maya train, the process to win the contract to carry out the basic engineering design was open solely to domestic companies, including subsidiaries of international firms that were properly established in the country. 

WHAT'S NEXT?

The responsibilities of the winning firm include conducting cartographical and topographical studies; geological, geotechnical and geophysical analyses; water and sewerage studies; coordinating the environmental and social impact studies with the firm selected for that task; building an inventory of existing railway and facilities in the area to be impacted; analysis of route options and definition of the final route; and the definition of structures and tunnels, as well as proposals for where to build the stations.

The contractor will also be responsible for analyzing the potential urban impacts, estimating the potential effects on existing roads and railways, obtaining capex and opex estimates and estimating the budget.

These studies will serve as the bases for the final designs of the seven sub-sections into which the railway will be divided.

According to Fonatur, the environmental impact assessment (EIA) and the consultation that is required by law when it comes to infrastructure projects developed in areas populated by indigenous groups will be carried out in parallel with the basic engineering design. 

Fonatur is also already working on one aspect of the project that is considered highly important for the federal government, and which entails the creation of “development hubs” in areas located along the railway’s future route. The hubs are areas with high tourism potential, where the government has identified investment opportunities for the construction of tourism facilities and real estate developments, among others.

As such, a tender to prepare a master plan to create a development hub near the archeological site of Palenque, in Chiapas state, was launched last week.

Based on the tender notice published on government procurement website Compranet, a clarification meeting has been set for August 13, with the date to submit and open bids scheduled for August 20. The winner of this contract will be announced on August 27.

Meanwhile, the government of Quintana Roo – one of the southern states the railway will cross – has also awarded a 13mn-peso (US$665,000) contract for three studies related to the train. One of them involves an analysis of whether rights-of-way need to be secured for a 85km stretch between Cancún and Tulúm, while the other two are for topography and aerial photography studies, local paper El Economista reported.

The study on the rights-of-way will serve to determine the legal status of the land that the railway is expected to cross.

A second package of studies to analyze soil mechanics and other geographic conditions is expected to be tendered shortly. The price of the contract is also expected to be 13mn pesos, according to the report.

These studies will serve as input for the project's EIA.

LAND SITUATION

Federal authorities have repeatedly said that around 90% of the railway will be built using rights-of-way for existing railways, roads and power lines, which are either held by the federal or state governments. 

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has proposed to integrate landowners and communities as “partners” in the project to secure the remaining rights-of-way. Both the president and Fonatur officials have stated that no land expropriations are foreseen for the railway.

Fonatur director Rogelio Jiménez is urging the owners of the land through which the train is set to pass, as well as that near the future development hubs, to beware of land speculators and participate in the project by agreeing to securitize their land through real estate investment trusts known as Fibras.

“This is the best long-term option we've found to distribute the future proceeds from the train in an equitable way,” Jiménez said at the ceremony to announce the latest contract winner.