Cancun to Palenque bullet train to begin construction in 2019

769

Cancun, Q.R. — The construction of a new bullet train from the north to the south of the state is set to begin next year.

José Luis Pech Várguez, a senator-elect for Quintana Roo, says that the upcoming project will be an investment of 100 billion pesos. The proposal for the train was part of the campaign proposals made by president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador during his June 26 speech in Cancun.

Cancun, Calakmul, and Palenque are three of the main points of the peninsular train, which he says, will be to bring tourism from the north to the south. Above all, the new train will be used to develop cultural tourism in the state’s archaeological zones of Campeche and Chiapas, adding that tourism will also capture the beauty of Tulum, Bacalar-Xcabal, Xpuchil, Calakmul, Becan, and Palenque and bring growth to the south.

“This project has already been delivered to the person in charge which will be Rogelio Ramírez de la O, who will be working in National Fund for Tourism Promotion.

“I understand that they will make some adjustments to the route of the line and will define three stops. Two could be Playa del Carmen and Puerto Morelos, the third, perhaps Tulum on the Cancun-Tulum route,” he explained.

The proposal of the line is Cancún-Tulum-Carrillo Puerto-Bacalar-Calakmul-Palenque which will, in part, be aerial with the central phase between Cancun and Tulum so they can later take it parallel to the highway.

According to Pech Várguez, the first section of the Cancún-Tulum line will be in approximately two years, adding that the resources for the work will begin to flow next year.

“The project involves government, private initiative and owners of the ejido land where the railway line will be placed,” adding that “the ejidos that own the land will participate as partners of the project,” he explained.

He said that the bullet train will have a top speed of 130 kilometers per hour and will be a passenger train, not a train that will be used to transport cargo, noting that this project is very different from the transpeninsular train proposed by the current federal administration.

Pech Várguez says that the new bullet train is a six-year project that will begin in 2019.

During his presidential campaign speech in Cancun, Andrés Manuel López Obrador pledged to boost tourism in the Mayan region by adding a bullet train so that travelers who visit Cancun for its beaches can also visit the archaeological zones of Yucatan, Campeche, and Chiapas.