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>>2064584
Correction: FNM didn't take over all the railways until the 80s
After the privatization, mainline passenger rail was pretty much dead in Mexico, except for some tourist services like the Chepe and Tequila train, and the suburban train of Mexico City. Since 2015 there's been a huge expansion in public railway investment
>Mexico City-Queretaro train as part of a larger proposed Mexico-Guadalajara route revival
>Monterrey commuter rail a la Mexico City
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pzeabt_urA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFM3AHHqlbo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdMmqjjp6zs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROwUAg5TGyY

>>2064584
Tren Maya EVOs are pretty nice. The radio lockers feel so empty without all the PTC and cab signal equipment.

I don't get why they insist on building new lines for passenger service. That will take forever to actually get a rail network going, in practice it'll just be meme lines like Mexico City - Toluca.

When you talk to Mexicans they go on about how the existing lines are so slow and terrible, but that's not true, Mexico had reasonably good rail service in the past, it's mostly just lack of maintenance. They even electrified the Mexico-Queretaro line in the 90s, only to shut down passenger service a few years later. Apparently this service had speed problems because of ROW invasion, not because of bad infrastructure.

Problem I see is firstly that Mexico doesn't know what it wants, there's no proper idea of how the rail system should look, at times there's tall of HSR (lmfao), then they build tourist meme trains like Tren Maya, then the odd commuter train but which isn't even part of a coherent network.
Then there's the problem that it's fucking Mexico and they can't do anything right, corruption is rampant and government is incompetent, so you get bad ideas executed even worse. I mean hell, that's the reason why they privatized railways in the first place!

tl;dr Mexico is fucked and will never have good trains. At least in the NdeM days it was shitholekino. Now it's just gay and cringe.

t. half-mexican

>>2064673
What's wrong with CDMX-Toluca?

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Some of the best rail kino ever. Two Mexico City workers take their old tram out for a last ride.
Detroit sold hundreds of PCC trolleys to Mexico City in 1956 and lost money on the deal. They agreed to deliver them in like new condition and Mexico City livery but some were damaged in transit and had to be repaired. They ran into the 80s then most were destroyed in an earthquake when the carbarn collapsed.

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>>2064673
This is a nice news report about FNM Jarocho services in the 80s/early 90s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNY5LbbMo4A
The Mexican government was pretty much bankrupt in the 90s and they couldn't afford to revamp the FNM, so they sold it for petty cash. The reason why they build new lines is because they can't come to an agreement with the freight companies. For example, most of the transoceanic railroad was abandoned before the Mexican government took it over and they came to an agreement with Ferrosur for the rest of the lines. Same deal with the Mayan train although a lot of it is new construction
But yeah the Mayan train is heavily underperforming. Only 1.2 million riders in 2025 out of a projected 40 million. They were banking on the millions of tourists that visit Cancun to use it but I guess tourist numbers might be down because of crime? Or it might just be too inconvenient to use

>>2064731
Fuck, mexican TV spanish is so EASY to understand, living among caribbeans for years and years convinced me that I can barely speak spanish anymore but no, turns out it is the children who are wrong and I still understand real spanish fine, the real problem is these mumbling weirdos who can't even finish the word

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>>2064684
In my opinion, they should have kept the streetcar and not converted them into trolleybuses. Articulated trams can offer a lot more capacity than a bus
Since the metro is overcrowded, if they kept the trams they could soak up some of that excess ridership on the surface. But at the same time I understand that the prevailing opinion was against streetcars at that time
PCC cars are so beautiful wtf

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>>2064733
And the metro really is overcrowded because the fare is too cheap (3 pesos vs the 20+ pesos it costs to run), the trainsets are too small, and the stations are too small. It was built in the 70s when Mexico wasn't the 10 million plus megalopolis it is today. They really need to revamp the whole system a complete overhaul of stations and technology

>>2064731
I mean, aside from the toilet situation it doesn't sound TOO different from amtrak's present state. I do not trust the testimony of the slow talking fat guy talking about hookers and foul mouthed individuals, he sounded like he was on something himself.

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>>2064733
Mexico City added a “2” to the old Detroit PCC numbers, which went up to 285. They also got some from Minneapolis which were higher numbered.
El Paso PCCs used to cross the border to Juarez.

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What's the point of the tren maya if no one lives there? This is some usonian-tier boondoggle logic

>>2064731
>The reason why they build new lines is because they can't come to an agreement with the freight companies
El Peje recently said that the privatization agreements actually include clauses for passenger service (prolly similar to amtrak) so there prolly was never actually an issue with this, other than top speeds being really slow plus delays due to freight trains

>>2064731
>nice news report about FNM Jarocho services in the 80s/early 90s
great find thanks. amazing to see Buenavista and passenger trains back in the days

>>2064733
The problem was getting new rolling stock in the 70s and 80s. The PCCs were nearing 40+ years old and in typical mexican fashions probably in rather bad shape, so where would they have gotten replacements? It was probably disproportionately expensive to get new streetcars compared to metro trains. And there were no more 2nd hand cars on the market because the US had closed all their systems. Add to that the metro lines pretty much duplicating many streetcar lines, so what was even the point.

However they could have kept the streetcar lines that went further than the metro, like they did with the xochimilco line. I'm thinking of the line which went from barranca del muerto to the university. Some years ago there was still track visible on the ramp going down to the former terminus near the Olympic stadium.

>>2064731
Thanks for sharing this video, absolute shitholekino. I lived a few years in Mexico in the mid 00s, would of loved to get to travel by train (though I would def ride primera especial lmao).
I love all the sleazy details you get in the video, both from the report and the interviews. I'd never heard about "garroteros", but I didn't quite get why they cordon off the seats, to then charge people for them?

What I find interesting is that the reporters point of view has pretty high standards, I mean the situation on the train doesn't look completely catastrophic, I've ridden non-HSR trains in Spain and they were old and busted up, toilets smelly and dirty. Surely not as bad as in the vid, but let's say halfway there.

Makes me kinda sad because rail service certainly wasn't at a "point of no return", it could have been greatly improved without too much difficulty. Get a proper ticketing system, get tough on security (like they got all the street vendors out of the city center in Mexico City, this was a big thing in my days that they'd just gotten it cleaned up), get a bit of cleaning and some maintenance and you're good for starters. Then privatize freight operations, maybe establish a semi-private infrastructure administration, and give operational priority to passenger trains (basically amtrak but if amtrak owned all rail lines).

It's always said that railways were privatized because state enterprises are invariably inefficient, there's surely some truth to that, but Mexico has gotten its act together at least somewhat compared to the 80s/90s when it was really hellish. I don't think it's so much state enterprises being unviable but that they simply work as well or as bad as the state they belong to. So by this time just like Mexico is slightly less shithole-y the trains would work less shitty as well.

As always it's easier to improve something that you already have than making something new.

sorry for tl;dr

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>>2064675
idk it's maybe not that it's a bad project in and of itself, it just irks me when they build isolated rail lines instead of a proper coherent system. If you couldn't keep your old rail system working, then most likely this new one will go to shit eventually as well.

It's such a third world mindset to never improve your infrastructure, and then one day you think
>hmmm we have really terrible infrastructure, we need to build new stuff

and you have rail lines already which reach into the city center of both Toluca and CDMX, and yet you build a new line that goes to somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. I get that the old CDMX-Toluca line was probably one of the worst as far as the route goes, the new line makes sense, but why not join it up with the old routes reaching into the respective city centers and only bypass the slow, roundabout parts?

Look at pic related, on the Toluca side it joins up perfectly with the straight part that would have been very easy to get good grade separation. The CDMX side ok that's not so easy, but I mean they've built the road viaduct over periférico, they might just have built a rail viaduct as well to get the train to join up with the active bit of the Cuernavaca line and all the way to Buenavista.

It's so half-assed as it is. Sad!

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HOLY SHIT I FINALLY FOUND IT
I was starting to think I only dreamt it, but I swore I'd seen a pic of a refurbished PCC with twin headlights in Mexico City.
Apparently (according to a facebook post) it was a one-off prototype.

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>>2064811
one more pic

>>2064770
>What's the point of the tren maya if no one lives there?
If no one lives there, you don't need to fuss around with stations and can have the trains go fast.

>>2064812
Looks like a lot of mods from the original Detroit car. The windows are different, there’s doors on the left side and the front right door is smaller, besides the twin headlights and other small details. Did any PCCs survive in Mexico City?

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If we're talking about the best place to revive passenger rail realistically this is the best place to do it. 50% of Mexico lives in this line, it has the best farmland, volcanoes, historic towns, etc. 50 million + people. Mexico City is also in dire need of expanding its metro to fit its new urban boundaries. The airports and highways of the major cities here are super congested. It also has the most railway infrastructure. It's like the Mexican version of the northeast corridor
I think the AIFA-Pachuca train will be a smash hit and the Toluca train, in time.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DudvaRTvEXM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFZ7tB5jP_0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG6Z9WxBgHA
Oaxaca train service reports. Unfortunately the tracks from Tehuacan to Oaxaca have been abandoned which is surprising because Oaxaca is actually a pretty big city I don't know why they don't have freight service

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>>2064850
The doors on the left side were always added to trams in Mexico, since on many avenues they ran along the center and would have passengers board from the median. See pic related

>Did any PCCs survive in Mexico City?
There's one preserved in the smol but neat electric transport museum. They also have the "tranvía 0", a car from the first electric series from 1900 which occasionally ran as a historic tram until the 70s; as well as a "góndola", an open cargo tram which is quite unique. Farmers would use these to get their goods to the city in the mornings.

>>2064854
It seems south of Mexico city rail infrastructure was always much worse, probably because of less industry.
Although isn't there international freight traffic from Guatemala? That one train which immigrants always ride.

In any case, if that line is abandoned then the government could easily take it over for passenger service without bothering freight trains. Goes to show how half assed they're re-introducing passenger service

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>>2064731
>that one guy in primera especial
lmao dunno why this made me chuckle so much

But basically the implication is that mostly just poor people were taking the train at this point.

Also
>"nuevos pesos"
This dates the report very precisely to 1993 or 94, so no more than 5 years before privatization.

>>2064854
what's up with the lip sync'd old lady being interviewed, is she speaking zapotec?

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>>2064868
One of the Detroit cars made it back here though it’s in bad shape at a museum. If I ever make it to Mexico City I’ll check out that tram museum.

https://www.american-rails.com/aztec.html
At one time the Aztec Eagle ran from St. Louis to Mexico City, the longest passenger run in North America. It was a shared operation between N de M and the Missouri Pacific, who used the “Eagle” name for all their top passenger trains.