Background Mexico–Querétaro electric railway In 1978, the
Secretariat of Communications and Transportation proposed the construction of the first Mexican double-track electric
railway powered by overhead catenary. Based on a study prepared by the government agency, the
Mexico City-
Querétaro route was determined to be the most viable for electrification due to its high passenger and freight traffic, topography almost lacking gradients, and strategic location in the centre of the country. By 1983, the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation decided to suspend the project due to changes in route alignments and operating policies. In 1986, electrification resumed only with the participation of technical staff from the Secretariat,
National Railways of Mexico, and the French company
Societe Francais d'Etudes et de Realisations Ferroviaires (Sofrerail), today SYSTRA S.A. In 1996,
Ernesto Zedillo,
President of Mexico from 1994 to 2000, removed the parastatal company
National Railways of Mexico from state control, and passenger transport operations throughout the country were terminated. In the years following privatization, three passenger routes were created for tourism purposes: the
Chihuahua-Pacific Railway (Chepe), the
Tequila Express, and the (without commercial operations since 25 June 2007).
A new project: the suburban railway between 1999 and 2011 In 1997, the
federal government proposed the creation of a
commuter rail line on the right-of-way of the former railway to
Cuernavaca. This route would be 24 kilometres long between Avenida Ejército Nacional and the Pedregal de San Nicolás neighbourhood, would connect with four lines of the
Mexico City Metro, and would transport 42,000 passengers daily. In 1999,
Óscar Santiago Corzo Cruz, director of the General Directorate of Tariffs, Railway and Multimodal Transport of the
Secretariat of Communications and Transportation, raised the possibility of building a network of
commuter rail lines on the 242 kilometres of rail network in the
Valley of Mexico. The network would consist of three trunk systems: from the former Buenavista railway station in
Mexico City to the municipality of
Cuautitlán in the
State of Mexico; from
Ecatepec to
Naucalpan, both in the
State of Mexico; and from
La Paz to the
Bosque de San Juan de Aragón in
Mexico City. The last two itineraries would pass through Buenavista station. Each trunk system would include branches to meet demand in neighbouring municipalities:
Nextlalpan,
Tecamac,
San Juan Teotihuacán,
Texcoco, and
Chalco. Corzo Cruz noted that the elevated train or Ecotren project would require the expropriation of land and the creation of new rights-of-way. The
commuter rail project would not require these measures, since it would use right-of-way owned by the federal government. In addition, the suburban railway would be aimed at lower-income sectors of the population. In its first stage it would serve 465,000 passengers along 27 kilometres between Buenavista station and
Cuautitlán. After a series of discussions and agreements between the federal government and the local governments of the
Federal District and the
State of Mexico, it was decided to build the first suburban railway system largely based on the radial trains project proposed in 1998. On 11 June 2003, at the former Buenavista railway station, President Fox attended the signing of the cooperation agreement between
Pedro Cerisola y Weber, secretary of Communications and Transportation (2000–2006);
Andrés Manuel López Obrador,
Head of Government of the Federal District (2000–2005); and
Arturo Montiel Rojas, governor of the
State of Mexico (1999–2005), for the construction of the Suburban Railway Project of the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico. On 11 December 2003, the
Secretariat of Communications and Transportation published the tender for the construction of System 1 of the Buenavista–Cuautitlán Suburban Railway. The companies that entered the tender process were:
Bombardier Transportation; Ferrosur, SA de CV;
Alstom Transporte, SA de CV; Construcciones y Auxiliares de Ferrocarriles, SA; Grupo México, SA de CV;
Elecnor, SA; Inversiones en Autotransportes Mexicanos, SA de CV;
Siemens, SA de CV and
Mitsui de México, S de RL de CV. Some companies formed alliances before 15 July 2004 (the deadline indicated in the tender). From these alliances, the following consortia emerged: • Consortium
Alstom, made up of:
Alstom Transporte, SA de CV (1.5%);
Alstom Transport, SA (France) (11.0%); ICA-COI, SA de CV (Mexico) (12.5%); Grupo Hermes, SA de CV (Mexico) (50%); and Inverse, SA de CV (Mexico) (25.0%). System operators:
RATP and/or
Roggio. On 12 July 2005, in the Official Gazette of the Federation, the
Secretariat of Communications and Transportation published the new tender rules. Only the
Alstom and
CAF consortia responded. In this new bidding round, the Estrella Blanca group decided to leave the Spanish consortium. The
Alstom consortium remained unchanged. Given the irregularities presented in the first tender result, deputies from the
Party of the Democratic Revolution demanded that the federal government make the suburban railway tender process transparent. On 24 August 2005, the consortium
Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S.A. (CAF) won a 30-year concession to supply materials, including rolling stock, build and operate System 1 of the Tren Suburbano. The trains used on this service are electric trains built by CAF and are similar to the series 2000 trains of the
Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos of
São Paulo,
Brazil. CAF's economic proposal proved to be the lowest, charging, for long journeys,
MXN $9.49 +
VAT + inflation index and
MXN $4.14 +
VAT + inflation index for short journeys. Operation of System 1 would be handled by its subsidiary
Ferrocarriles Suburbanos, SA de CV, and it would have 34 months to build the system. After the long and controversial tender process for System 1, on 26 November 2007, Mexican journalist
Jacobo Zabludovsky, in his column
Bucareli in the newspaper El Universal, revealed the alleged intervention of King
Juan Carlos of Spain and
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in favor of the Spanish construction group. Despite this, no denial was issued by the parties involved. With the suburban railway's inauguration approaching, authorities of the
Federal District expressed dissatisfaction over delays in various complementary works (road and pedestrian bridges) and infrastructure to connect some suburban stations with other mass transport systems in
Mexico City (
Metrobús and the
Mexico City Metro). The
Secretariat of Communications and Transportation committed to deliver
MXN$ 290 million to the
Government of the Federal District, through an agreement signed on 2 May 2008, to carry out the corresponding mitigation works and acquire 12 buses for the
Metrobús. In December 2006,
SCT announced that approval had been given for a route extending from
Jardines de Morelos to
Martín Carrera; and another route running from Chalco to La Paz. Neither line was ever built. The project aimed to reactivate the former railway system and improve the social well-being of residents of the
Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico through time savings in transport, reduction of
traffic congestion,
environmental pollution and excessive energy consumption. It also proposed to use the 242 kilometres of existing track in the area distributed among three trunk systems and lower-density lines, with potential grade separations similar to the ones done on the initial segment. The proposed trunk systems were Buenavista-Cuautitlán-Huehuetoca, Ecatepec-Naucalpan, and San Juan de Aragón-Los Reyes. The
Secretariat of Communications and Transportation contracted the National Bank of Public Works and Services (BANOBRAS) as financial agent in order to structure financing, organise tenders, conduct feasibility studies, and develop the railway system. The financing structure designed allowed the participation of private capital. Line 1 covers a route measuring from
Mexico City's
Buenavista Station to the
State of Mexico's
Cuautitlán. The section, which began commercial service on June 2, 2008 (after three weeks of
fare-free trial operation), cost US$706 million to build, with the Mexican Federal Government contributing 55% of this investment. The inaugural demonstration trip of the service from Buenavista to
Lechería Station and back again was made by then-President of Mexico,
Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, and then-Governor of the State of Mexico (and eventual president of the country),
Enrique Peña Nieto, with Calderón acting as the train's engineer. Line 1 was built on an existing
at-grade railroad right of way. However, inside Mexico City itself on the approach to Buenavista Station, a considerable amount of grade separation, including below-grade excavation and new bridges, was necessary due to high density and traffic congestion. The construction elicited complaints by Mexico City residents who objected to having their neighborhoods split by the rail line, but the public supported the project overall. In addition to the track, the construction of Tren Suburbano also benefited from like-new electrification infrastructure already in place along most of the route, part of
National Railways of Mexico (NdeM)'s Mexico City-
Querétaro 25 kV 60 Hz mainline electrification completed in the 1990s but de-energized a few years later after NdeM was
privatized. ==Corporate identity==