"El Tren Maya" - The Mayan Train

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Strelnikov
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"El Tren Maya" - The Mayan Train

Post by Strelnikov » Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:51 pm



The Mayan Train is this massive rail project on the Yucatan that AMLO*, the President of Mexico, has ramrodded through. It's part touristy bullshit, part freight run, that will not stop in many towns that it will barrel through on existing tracks, and might be sucked under into the many subterranean rivers on the peninsula, because the bedrock is thin karst. And yes, they keep digging up ruins and archeological artifacts, but they won't say where they found them. Also, they are using powerful French commuter trains instead of slower locomotives, and not enough of the system is electrified. El Presidente López Obrador wants the thing done before he is out of office in 2024, which is definitely pushing it.

The en.Wikipedia article is crap as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tren_Maya

The area was full of narrow-gauge railways left over from a boom in rope-plant haciendas in the late 19th century; the plant is like a low-grade agave, and until synthetic rope emerged, it was a Mexican export. After the rail companies split, it became a free rail network as people used small motorized platforms or donkeys hauling lightweight rail carts to send things from town to town or to travel by pumpcart. It slowly rotted away, despite it's apparent usefulness, like a lot of the rail inside the United States.


* Andrés Manuel López Obrador. His far-right critics call him "López", because that is a common last name and less aristocratic-sounding than "Obrador". These people probably were/are related to the fools who killed intercity passenger rail in Mexico in the 1980s and forced people to buy cars.
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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ericbarbour
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Re: "El Tren Maya" - The Mayan Train

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Feb 02, 2022 6:18 am

Not one shred of this surprises me. Even though the standard of living in Mexico has risen in the past 30 years (thanks largely to NAFTA and gringo tourism I'm told), and fewer people are openly starving in the streets, the country's political system is still rife with corruption and incompetence.

My friend's mother had a custom home built in the Mulege area of Baja a few years ago, so she could retire someplace without miserable cold winters. Building the big concrete house was relatively cheap, food and other things are also cheap there. But you literally can't have or expect various essential services. Electric and internet are okay but the municipal water system is awful. The Mexican postal system is 95% unreliable and UPS and Fedex aren't much better, especially in rural areas. And you will hate having to deal with police if you are a crime victim--bribes and ass-kissing are "expected", and actual prosecutions are questionable, even if they have the perp already.

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