Investors have expressed their interest in building an alternate route, exclusively for freight trains, to the network that was rehabilitated as part of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT) project, said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
If completed, he added, transfer times between the ports of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz would be reduced from seven to four hours; this, with the purpose of having a faster route to connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Yesterday morning, the president said that this route would have – unlike the current one, built in the Porfiriato and rehabilitated in the current six-year term to relaunch the train in that area – with tunnels and viaducts, making the route faster.
He added that the CIIT is not a complement, but an alternative to the Panama Canal, to move goods from Asia to the West through the two oceans. “It is a project with a great future.
This project is going to be developed, there is a lot of interest. I can’t talk more, but it is one of the most desired projects
he predicted.
–Would it be another line apart from the one that already exists? –She asked him.
—Yes, to confine it and, instead of traveling between six and seven hours – which it takes nowadays to cover the journey –, make it three or four. Pure container load –he responded.
He indicated that the current road was built during the time of Porfirio Díaz and was rehabilitated during his government as part of the CIIT project, but the route includes many curves because more than a century ago the technology to make tunnels or viaducts did not exist, which If they were undertaken today they would reduce the travel time of the railways.
He recalled that progress has already been made in the CIIT with the modernization of the ports of Salina Cruz and Coatzacoalcos, the breakwater in the former, the upcoming installation of several development poles, the rehabilitation of the road and the construction of new bridges for the passage of the trains.
On the other hand, he recommended that the next federal administration have complete control of natural resources, so as not to aggravate the water crisis, avoid the delivery of mining concessions and maintain control of lithium.