The Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT) updated in the investment portfolio of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP) the cost of the construction of the Mexico-Toluca train (El Insurgente) and established it at 140,134.8 million pesos , which represented an increase of 14% (17,152.1 million pesos), compared to the last amount that the organization had officially disclosed last year.
This work began in 2014, in the administration of former president Enrique Peña Nieto, with a projected investment of 35,000 million pesos and with the idea of finishing the 58 kilometers (km) from Zinacantepec (State of Mexico) to Observatory (Mexico City). ) at the end of 2017.
Said six-year term concluded and the train was still under construction and increasing its cost, which is why it was inherited to the government of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador with an amount of 70,976.5 million pesos.
This year, in the first months of the second federal administration of the so-called Q4, the figure practically doubled, without the cost-benefit analysis having been updated to justify it, the last one being from March 2024.
According to the most recent report on the physical and financial progress of the SHCP’s investment programs and projects (as of September 30, 2024), the work had a total progress of 93.5% and operated from the Zinacantepec station to Santa Fe.
The missing section includes the Vasco de Quiroga station and a cable-stayed viaduct (which is in charge of the SICT), in addition to the terminal station in Observatorio, which will connect with Line 1 of the Metro, which is undergoing remodeling work in that part of the journey.
Various figures on the train
In this year’s expenditure budget, the SICT detailed that, in addition to its new passenger railway projects (Mexico-Nuevo Laredo and Mexico-Nogales, for example), it will continue with the Mexico-Toluca interurban train project, for which they were 1,556.3 million pesos approved.
However, in the department’s Investment Programs and Projects section, the train appears with a total cost lower than that of September 2024: 108,839.1 million pesos, of which 97,374.1 million had been invested in previous years. weights.
Among the resources that have been allocated to the project also include close to 28,000 million pesos from the National Infrastructure Fund Trust (FONADIN), where Banobras is the trustee and was the one to whom the SICT granted the assignment in July 2022. of the El Insurgente train valid until February 8, 2058, which is why it is the current person in charge of the operation.
“In the event that the assignee requires to extend the validity of the assignment title, he or she may request an extension, based on the corresponding legal and regulatory terms,” it was explained then, although it has emerged that this year the assignment could be transferred to the Collective Transport (Metro).
