Mexico’s president announced Wednesday that he will require private rail companies that mostly carry freight to offer passenger service or else have the government schedule its own trains on their tracks. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador denied any notion that his decree to be issued later this month amounted to expropriation of private property. He said existing law guarantees passenger trains priority.
López Obrador said the company has since reached an agreement to cede the tracks. The pet project of his administration is the construction of a $20 billion, 950-mile line, called the Maya Train, which is meant to run in a rough loop around the Yucatán Peninsula, connecting beach resorts and archaeological sites.