The beginnings of rail transport in Mexico date back to the concessions granted by
Maximilian I of Mexico, mostly to foreign companies, and continued by
Benito Juárez. In 1898,
José Yves Limantour proposed a system of concessions of the railway companies on the future lines to be built from 1900. That same year the
Secretariat of the Treasury promulgated the first General Railway Law. This law established a system whereby concessions would be granted to companies to lay railway lines only when they satisfied the economic needs of the country and linked the interior of the Republic with its most important commercial ports. The N de M company was created in 1903 during the tenure of
Porfirio Díaz, and it was through said company that most of the Mexican railway network was developed. In fact, before the
Porfiriato, only the Mexico City–Veracruz segment was in operation, since Gen. Díaz's greatest interest was to develop the country industrially, he had a special affinity for the railroad. Pursuant to an agreement signed on February 29, 1908, N de M absorbed the Mexican Central Railroad (
Ferrocarril Central Mexicano, first section from Mexico City to
León, Guanajuato, opened in 1882) in 1909, thus acquiring a second border gateway at
Ciudad Juárez (adjacent to
El Paso, Texas). This gave the Mexican federal government a 58% stake in N de M. The N de M was fully
nationalized by
President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río in 1938, and
privatized in 1994–98 by Presidents
Carlos Salinas de Gortari and
Ernesto Zedillo. Until 1987, N de M operated most railway trackage through the central and northeastern regions of the country. The
Ferrocarril del Pacífico (or Pacific Railroad) and the
Ferrocarril Chihuahua al Pacífico operated railroads in the northwest. In 1987, President
Miguel de la Madrid merged the N de M and the country's five existing regional rail operators into the wider Ferronales (FMN) parastatal organization. In 1995, due to FNM's serious financial difficulties, the Mexican government announced that FNM would be
privatized and divided into four main systems. As part of the restructuring for privatization, FNM suspended passenger rail service in 1997, and the new arrangements applied from 1998; by then FNM ceased to be the operator and administrator of most of its major railway routes. The companies were
Kansas City Southern de Mexico,
Ferromex,
Ferrosur, and (owned jointly by the three companies)
Ferrocarril y Terminal del Valle de México or Ferrovalle which operates railroads and terminals in and around Mexico City. It was not until June 4, 2001, during
Vicente Fox's presidency that FNM as an organization was officially extinguished, as confirmed by a publication in Mexican Official's Gazette. FNM will continue to exist legally as a state-owned
shell entity under
liquidation (as
Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México en Liquidación) until the conclusion of the liquidation process. As of ,
FNM en Liquidación still owns some lines (23% of which are
shortline railroads) where concessions cannot be granted or are considered to be of importance for the national economy, such as the
Trans-Istmico, which goes from
Salina Cruz,
Oaxaca to
Coatzacoalcos,
Veracruz, although their direct operations are through
Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec. Since 2012, FNM en Liquidación as well as its associated liquidation process and settlement of existing liabilities has been headed by an undersecretariat of the
Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT).
Locomotives 8129 leads a train in Esperanza in 1966 During the days of
steam locomotives, N de M was best known for operating
Niágara class locomotives, which took their name from the
New York Central Railroad locomotives of the same wheel configuration. It was also the home of several narrow gauge systems that used steam, both nationally and regionally. N de M was one of the few railroads outside the US to purchase new diesel locomotives from
Baldwin Locomotive Works: the only three "Baldwin E-units" ever built (
DR-6-4-2000), the
DR-12-8-1500/2 and the
AS-616. Two of the three DR-6-4-2000 locomotives had been on major railroads in the United States on a demonstration tour in 1945. N de M bought them in August 1945 and ordered a third in August 1946. All three consistently broke down and were retired soon after their factory warranties expired and were scrapped in September 1957. They do not appear on the 1958 N de M locomotive roster, and sat for years in the scrapyard at
San Luis Potosí. Notes in the FNM archives in Puebla, Mexico describe how one of these locomotives had a wheel disintegrate at high speed, and also how the Centipede locomotives were delivered in 1948 with parts missing. In
Acámbaro,
Guanajuato, N de M operated one of the few facilities in Latin America that was capable of constructing and doing complete rebuilds of steam locomotives, thus with rare exceptions (as with the
Niagaras), most of N de M steam motive power was purchased used and rebuilt there. Portions of the facility and a preserved
2-8-0 steam locomotive remain as part of Acambaro's municipal railway museum. ==Notable named passenger trains of the N de M ==