Background Plans to connect these two oceans through the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec had existed since the
Colonial period in the 16th century, with plans to build a canal or highway in the site being considered, but never successfully executed. As early as the first half of that century, during the early years of the existence of the
Viceroyalty of New Spain, the
Spanish colony which is now Mexico, the Spanish
conquistador Hernán Cortés had already expressed his interest in creating communication between the two oceans in his letters to
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, though this doesn't necessarily mean he conceived the idea of using the isthmus for this purpose. Due to the short distance between the two oceans in this area, the potential for the creation of such a project had been attractive to various
global powers, including Spain, Britain, France, the Netherlands and finally the United States, as it would have saved cost and time. During the 19th century, when the
Cape Horn route was the only seaway to the other side of the
Americas, a canal would have reduced the risk to lives and produce:
cargo ships were frequently lost around the Horn.
Alexander von Humboldt wrote in his
Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, published in 1811, that the Isthmus of Tehuantepec was ideal for the creation of a canal to connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, due to the proximity between the ports of
Vera Cruz and
Tehuantepec, finding that the isthmus between them is the narrowest point between the two oceans in New Spain, and due to the proximity of the
sources of the
Coatzacoalcos and
Chimalapa rivers, which discharge into the
Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean respectively. In the Essay, he mentioned multiple points in the
Spanish Americas where the two oceans could be connected, including the
Isthmus of Panama (belonging to the
Viceroyalty of New Granada), remarking the fact that
Vasco Núñez de Balboa successfully crossed it as early as 1513 (several years before Mexico
was conquered by Spain), but that since then, at the time of the work's publication, no survey of the region nor the determination of its exact geographic position had been made, despite propositions being made since 1528 suggesting cutting that isthmus and joining the sources of local rivers. He also remarked that
Viceroy Juan Vicente de Güemes, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo, "has been for a longtime occupied" in the project of the creation of such a canal, and that land-based roads had been opened in the isthmus since the late 18th century, which created commercial communication between the two oceans; these were used, he remarked, to transport "the most precious of all known indigoes", the
indigo from
Guatemala (then a
kingdom belonging to New Spain covering much of
Central America, bordering Panama, though, according to Humboldt, it "depends very little on the viceroy of New Spain"), and
cacao from
Guayaquil (in modern-day
Ecuador, then part of the
Real Audiencia de Quito) to
Acapulco and, from there, to Vera Cruz to be sent to Europe, so as to avoid the dangers and difficulties of navigation to and through
Cape Horn. In 1774, the Spanish authorities conducted geological research in the isthmus and issued a decree allowing their colony to create a canal in 1814, but this would not occur until Mexico
became an independent country in 1821. Shortly after the independence, the Mexican government conducted its own surveys in the region, which resulted in the survey teams proposing the idea of the construction of a railroad, though this wasn't done due to Mexico's economic crisis of this period.
First attempts to connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Mexico had seen the commercial opportunities brought by railway systems since the early years of this industry. Just 7 years after the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened in
England, Mexican President
Anastasio Bustamante, on 22 August 1837, offered a concession to a man from Veracruz named Francisco de Arrillaga with the purpose of building a railway line between
Mexico City and Veracruz. Under this concession, the railway was to be finished in 12 years and no other entity was allowed to build a railway between the two cities in 30 years. Though nothing would come about this concession, the Mexican government would continue to try to connect the ports of Veracruz with the country's capital and the Pacific Ocean.
The Garay concession and the New Orleans company No serious attempts to construct the corridor would be made until 1842, during the provisional government of
Antonio López de Santa Anna, when plans were made to build an interoceanic communication line in the isthmus (though no such line would be built). The task to achieve this was given to a businessman named José de Garay on March 1 of that year, who would be entitled to collect tolls for its usage for 50 years, paying 1/4 of the profits to the Mexican treasury, and to own uncultivated land stretching toward either side of the route, on which he could establish worker colonies. Garay was to conduct, at his own expense, a survey of the region within 18 months at most and the construction of the communication line had to begin within the following 10. Garay was officially given the land the concession granted him in March 1843 after delivering the results of the survey, being secured by the
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Home Department José María Bocanegra. However, the concession would have expired in July 1844 since the project fell stagnant due to a lack of funds (despite getting access to free labor from three hundred convicts in October, also secured by Bocanegra), but Garay asked for a two-year long renewal a few days before the deadline. and to the London-based Schneider & Co., Schneider being an English
consul involved in the exploitation of
mahogany in the isthmus. This agreement was ratified in 1847. Throughout the year of 1848, however, Manning and Mackintosh, along with Garay, attempted to sell the concession to the British and United States governments, and then to private U.S. citizens after failing to do so. 18 months would pass without any notable advancements in the project, despite Manning insisting the contrary in an exposition before the government in January 1849. In February 1849, the British firm sold Garay's concession to a
New York City businessman named Peter A. Hargous (speculatively for a modest amount), who proceeded to attract attention from investors through soliciting articles to major newspapers across the
American East Coast and the South, and, collaborating with Garay, through a general railroad convention held in October in
Memphis, Tennessee. Through these efforts, they managed to attract the attention of wealthy businessmen from
New Orleans,
Louisiana, at the time the most important city in the South of the U.S., who proceeded to publish an article in
The Daily Picayune addressing the Tehuantepec route, offering attractive, albeit exaggerated and at times inaccurate, descriptions of the site, immediately attracting the attention of the city's business elite. In 1850, Hargous approached
Judah P. Benjamin, a member of the
Louisiana House of Representatives, to negotiate the purchase of the Garay grant with the New Orleans businessmen. Benjamin and the businessmen formed The Tehuantepec Railroad Company of New Orleans (TRCNO), of which Benjamin became chairman, which would later become known as the
Louisiana Tehuantepec Company. Hargous gave the company a $500,000 loan and the company sought to raise $9 million in capital. The Mexican government became aware of the deal with the New Orleans company on December 30, five days after Major
John G. Barnard, lead engineer of the U.S. survey team composed of 54 engineers, arrived at the river mouth of Coatzacoalcos, Minatitlán. However, the Mexican government had doubted the validity of Garay's concession for some time: in March 1849, after Manning's futile attempt to demonstrate that works for the construction of the interoceanic line had been active, the government declared that Garay's concession had expired in November of the previous year, a declaration which the British firms protested against since March until they handed the issue over to Hargous in July, when they informed the government that the business had permanently established itself in the U.S. This treaty was ultimately signed on 22 June 1850, though with some changes that ensured the neutrality of the route and limited U.S. intervention. Both governments attempted to obtain international recognition to claim legitimacy, as Miramón was unable to launch a successful campaign onto the Gulf of Mexico to decisively defeat the Liberals. When U.S. President
James Buchanan sent
Robert Milligan McLane to Veracruz, who arrived on April 1, to establish diplomatic relations with the best suited party, he was given instructions from Secretary of State
Lewis Cass to negotiate a treaty to purchase
Baja California, if possible, and the American right to use the Isthmus of Tehuantepec "in perpetuity" and
Northern Mexico for military and commercial transportation for $10 million. Both the U.S. government, as Cass explained to McLane, and the Louisiana Tehuantepec Company sympathized with Juárez's government. The Company's president
Emile La Sére had, in fact, persuaded him to recognize Juárez's legitimacy, and Buchanan also explained he was not willing to recognize Miramón. After McLane established communication throughout the following days with
Melchor Ocampo, the Liberal Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the U.S. recognized Juárez's government and began negotiating the planned treaty (though "President Juarez , with singular determination, refused to cede a foot of territory, whatever might be the consequences", according to McLane himself), to the disdain of the Conservatives, who proceeded to denounce in the press any agreement reached between the Liberals and the U.S., accusing the Liberals of working for their own profit at the expense of their country. The Conservative government, likewise, referred to the treaty's negotiators as "traitors to the nation", manifesting their discontent to
France and the
United Kingdom, even asking for military intervention to the
Emperor of the French Napoleon III, an event which would eventually contribute to the beginning of the
Second Franco-Mexican War in the following decade. The Liberals suffered a series of significant losses during the period of negotiations, including
Tacubaya just days after McLane's arrival, and the Conservatives held strong influence by the end of 1859 in areas such as
Aguascalientes,
Zacatecas and
San Luis Potosí. These losses might have contributed to Juárez being more willing to give in to U.S. interests during the negotiations. After months of negotiations, the Treaty of Transit and Commerce, also known as the
McLane–Ocampo Treaty, was signed on 14 December 1859. Under its clauses, the U.S. was to pay only $4 million (half of which was "to be retained to cover claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico"), an amount significantly smaller than what the U.S. had previously offered, for the right to freely use various railways or other forms of transportation across Mexico, including the Isthmus of Tehuantepec from ocean to ocean, and "to protect, by force of arms if necessary, all these transit routes, if Mexico failed to do so." The terms of the treaty displeased even some of Juárez's supporters, causing several officers of the national guard to resign. Despite that neither nation received anything from the treaty, U.S. support toward Juárez's government played an important role within the months following the signing of the treaty, as on 8 February 1860, Miramón set out from the capital in an attempt to launch a naval attack on Veracruz using two recently purchased ships from
Havana,
Cuba. Juárez's government declared these ships as
pirates, and were intercepted by two U.S. ships on March 6, acting as ordered by their government. The Conservative naval force
was defeated in the subsequent battle and the prisoners were taken to New Orleans. Miramón was thus forced to return to the capital now that his troops had no naval support, and the Conservatives started to suffer a military decline which eventually led to their defeat.
Other projects On 31 May 1842, nearly 2 months after Garay received his concession, López de Santa Anna authorized the committee of creditors in charge of maintaining the road between
Perote, Veracruz, and the port to build a railway to connect the port with the river of San Juan. This railway, long, built with the assistance of
Belgian personnel and using English materials, was inaugurated on 16 September 1850, making it Mexico's first ever completed railway. In 1853, the government would offer another concession to British subject John Laurie Rickards to build a railway between Mexico City and Veracruz, though the concession was invalidated about two years later and a concession was given to the Masso brothers, on 2 August 1855, to build a railway from Acapulco to San Juan, passing through Mexico City. On 4 July 1857, under President
Ignacio Comonfort, the line from Mexico City to
Villa de Guadalupe was inaugurated, which would form part of the Mexico City–Veracruz line the government had been attempting to create for nearly two decades by this point. Works were suspended shortly thereafter and the concession was given on August 31 to a businessman from
Orizaba named Antonio Escandón, who also purchased the Veracruz–San Juan line. Works to build the Mexico City to Veracruz line officially began late in that year. In spite of facing great difficulties over the following years, due to the
War of Reform and the
Second Franco-Mexican War, the Mexico City–Veracruz line was finally inaugurated in January 1873, under President
Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, who assisted the ceremony, concluding nearly 36 years of work to finish the line that would connect the capital with the most important port in the country for international commerce. This railway became known as
Ferrocarril Mexicano, the predecessor to the Tehuantepec Railway built under President
Porfirio Díaz, which would lay the foundation for the Interoceanic Corridor.
The Tehuantepec Railway and later projects report on the soon-to-be inaugurated Tehuantepec Railway Despite the failure of the previous attempts and controversial events surrounding the usage of the site, businesses and the government continued to show their interest in the creation of a communication line between the two oceans through the narrow isthmus, and so, during the presidency of
Porfirio Díaz, himself a man from
Oaxaca, the project of a railway in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec would start to get shape, this time insuring the neutrality of the passage and that the Mexican nation would preserve its sovereignty, now that it enjoyed political stability and had a strong standing army, which was respected internationally due to its victories during the country's
wars against Spain and
France. Though many Mexican Presidents have had plans to start building the Corridor again, this would not occur until the beginning of the presidency of
Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018, who, as a man from the southern state of
Tabasco, made the development of the Mexican South a priority of his government. In March 1995, the private sector became allowed through a constitutional amendment to participate in the provision of railroad services. In 1999, the state-owned company
Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec, S.A. de C.V., (FIT) was founded to operate the railway that connects Salina Cruz with the locality of , Veracruz. Through this company, the construction of the modern Corridor would be made.
The modern Corridor A project was presented on 23 December 2018, called "Program for the Development of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec", with the purpose of "developing the economy of the region respecting its history, culture and traditions", with
Rafael Marín Mollinedo, who would later be assigned as the first director of the Corridor, being in charge of the project, proposing the creation of the Corridor, then known as the Interoceanic Multimodal Corridor (
Corredor Multimodal Interoceánico). The Corridor project started development in 2019, with the purpose of developing the economy and infrastructure of the area of the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the Mexican South, which had faced social and
economic stagnation for decades due to "inadequate public policies, official disinterest and decades-long exclusion of the public investment budgets, which lead to disinterest from private investment to the development of the region and its subsequent stagnation and deterioration", as the first official report of the project stated, on September 17 of that year. The Corridor project was officially created on 14 June 2019, according to the decree published in the
Official Journal of the Federation on that day, as a decentralized public organization. Ten days after its official creation, López Obrador assigned Rafael Marín Mollinedo as the first general director of the project. In that same year, in April, López Obrador officially cancelled the project of the Special Economic Zones, under the statement that it failed to fulfill its promised benefits, despite that it had a relatively promising development in 2018. López Obrador later stated that passenger trains will actually move at a speed of up to . According to the Fifth Government Report of the presidency of López Obrador, works for the modernization and expansion at the port of Salina Cruz through the construction of a
breakwater started in January 2022. According to the advancement report published on 14 February 2022 by the FIT on
social media, amongst the activities that have been carried out for the modernization of the Tehuantepec Railway and the port of Salina Cruz are: the construction of the breakwater by pouring hundreds of thousands of tons of rock into the sea, the removal of old rail tracks, the distribution of
basalt with the assistance of a
work train, the replacement of old
wooden sleepers and the application of
exothermic welding to fix the tracks. In a controversial instance, in July 2023, it was announced that 200 trees would be cut down in the municipality of Salina Cruz for the construction of the Corridor, without offering much other information, at that time, about the business involved in the operation (later identified as ABCD ARQUITECTURA S.A. DE C.V., which is also responsible for the construction of the
Coatzacoalcos railway station) or its environmental impact despite the requests of local communities, though the
municipal council did agree to requests to spare some of the trees depending on their age, size and location, and to form a strategy to avoid massive
deforestation. The process to cut these trees began on 8 August 2023, though reportedly the business involved "has made the environmental compensation, in accordance to the income law." The environmental impact of the Corridor
has continued to be a source of concern for various communities in the isthmus region. In late November 2022, Marín Mollinedo announced his intention to step down from his position as director of the CIIT, to become the head of the , a request which became effective before 15 December 2022. His replacement became
Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles,
vice admiral of the
Mexican Navy who earned a degree in
naval engineering in 1989, aside from decades of studies in both national and international institutions. He officially took this position on 5 January 2023. By decree, the CIIT has been under the control of the Mexican
Secretariat of the Navy since March 2023. On the early morning of 19 May 2023, with the permission of a presidential decree, the
Mexican Armed Forces took control of of the railways belonging to
Ferrosur, a company owned by the conglomerate
Grupo México, in Veracruz, sparking controversy. This portion is vital for the creation of the Corridor, since it connects the locality of with the port of Coatzacoalcos, completing the connection between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans which the projects seeks to achieve. This event initially caused a dispute between Grupo México and the Mexican government. A few days after the event, various newspapers erroneously reported that the government accepted paying Grupo México 7 billion
pesos in compensation, less than the 9.5 billion which the owner of Grupo México
Germán Larrea Mota-Velasco had asked for, but this was denied by López Obrador on a morning press conference on May 24, stating that negotiations were continuing. On the night of May 31, this issue was resolved when the two parties reached an agreement. Under the agreement, instead of financially compensating the occupation, the concession of the railway, which possesses the occupied sections, in favor of Ferrosur granted by the government on 14 December 1998 will be extended by eight years so that it remains in force until the year 2056. According to Ferrosur, the FIT will be solely responsible for "the optimal safety conditions and the costs and expenses derived from the operation and maintenance of the track, slopes and yards in the aforementioned sections. We will only have to cover the fee corresponding to the
right of way." On 21 March 2023, director Morales Ángeles reported that the rehabilitation of the railway that connects Oaxaca and Veracruz had been 79% completed. The Fifth Government Report stated that by June 2023 the railway had an accumulated physical progress of 90%, while the breakwater of the port of Salina Cruz was at 30%. by which point the government expects to inaugurate all other infrastructural projects of the Corridor, as the governor of Oaxaca
Salomón Jara Cruz stated on a press conference in late June. On 6 September 2024, Morales Ángeles (who had ascended to the rank of
admiral on 20 November 2023) was announced as the new Secretary of the Navy under the government of the soon-to-be president
Claudia Sheinbaum, a position he would officially take on October 1. The still president-elect announced
Vice-Admiral Juan Carlos Vera Minjares, who was in charge of the Unit of Infrastructure and Transportation of the Corridor, as his replacement on 30 September, just hours before Sheinbaum officially became the president of the country.
First tests On 13 August 2023, the third day of a supervision tour through the Corridor, López Obrador was presented with the first
locomotive of the
Interoceanic Railway, which was named
Tehuana. Later, on August 26, what was formerly
a tourist train in
Puebla was received in Veracruz to serve as a passenger train for the Corridor, as the government of Puebla shut down its services in 2022 due to the high costs of its maintenance and operation, having spent hundreds of millions of pesos from 2016 to 2021 only to return less than 5 million. On August 21, López Obrador stated that he expected the Salina Cruz—Coatzacoalcos passenger train line (Line Z) to be ready by September 17, while, as he announced on July 21, the Coatzacoalcos—
Palenque line (
Line FA) would be ready by the end of the year or, at its latest, in March 2024. Line FA's operations, however, have been delayed since then. On 28 August 2023, the Corridor started its first test on the rehabilitated tracks, transporting 10
hoppers containing
cement and 2 tanks of
hydrofluoric acid from Medias Aguas to Salina Cruz. Crowds of locals gathered around the
Tehuana with cheers and applause, as it was the first time the tracks had been used in over 25 years, since President
Ernesto Zedillo privatized the railway sector, and as they expect for the Corridor to become an economic driver for their communities. On Saturday September 9, the passenger train was tested for the first time for a full interoceanic trip, from Coatzacoalcos to Salina Cruz, starting at 6:00 in the morning and arriving at its destination at 2:20 in the morning of the next day, with no issues reported at any point of the route. On 17 September 2023, President López Obrador made his first official trip on the Corridor's passenger train from Salina Cruz to Coatzacoalcos. He boarded the train along with the Governor of Oaxaca
Salomón Jara Cruz, the Governor of Veracruz
Cuitláhuac García Jiménez, and members of his cabinet, including the head of the
Secretariat of the Navy José Rafael Ojeda Durán. López Obrador made a post on X (formerly
Twitter) featuring a video showing gathered locals and construction workers cheering and applauding as he waves at them through a window. Political figures such as former
Head of Government of Mexico City Claudia Sheinbaum and Governor Jara Cruz referred to the event as a historic moment. López Obrador arrived at Coatzacoalcos after a nearly 9-hour-long trip, exiting the Salina Cruz station at 10:35 and arriving at Coatzacoalcos at 19:30. Reportedly hundreds of citizens waited for his arrival for hours to welcome him. On the morning press conference of the following day, general director Morales Ángeles offered details on the beginning of the Corridor's operations: according to the announcement, the
Ixtepec, Oaxaca, to
Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas, line (
Line K) would be the last to begin operation, in July 2024. Passenger operations for
Line FA would begin between December 2023 and March 2024. Passenger operations for Line Z, the interoceanic line, would begin in December 2023. Cargo operations for Line Z and Line FA officially began in September, "from this very moment" he claimed. However, works for Line FA and K were later delayed. On 24 January 2024, Ojeda Durán announced that Line FA would begin operations approximately in June 2024, and Line K in late September. Line FA, from Coatzacoalcos to Palenque, is meant to connect the Corridor with the
Maya Train (
Tren Maya), which travels throughout the
Yucatan Peninsula. On 14 October 2023, López Obrador made a second official trip through the Corridor, also accompanied by Ojeda Durán. He posted a video on X recorded during this trip in which he announced that the opening of the Corridor would take place on 22 December 2023, as a few technical details were yet to be polished. He also announced that the passenger train would move at a speed of up to . The trip, from Coatzacoalcos to Salina Cruz, lasted 7 hours, about the same amount of time as a
bus trip, though he stated in the video that the train would be faster. as well as between the Mexican and Portuguese governments. José Rafael Ojeda Durán then proceeded to deliver a speech detailing the importance of the Corridor, a brief summary of its historical background, its goals and functionality. López Obrador lastly delivered a speech afterwards, further describing the Corridor's history since the 16th century, his satisfaction with the project, its collaboration with local communities and his expectations. After the ceremony, López Obrador and other attendees, including his son
Gonzalo López Beltrán, the
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, Carlos Slim and the governors of Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tabasco and Chiapas boarded the passenger train. They arrived at Coatzacoalcos after 8 hours, at 20:13. However, the passenger line is not the main feature of the Corridor, since its primary objective is the transportation of cargo from ocean to ocean through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The Corridor is not yet completely ready for this purpose, since various works needed at the port of Salina Cruz are still under construction. The delays on the construction of the
jetties of the new port, in fact, impeded the inauguration of the Salina Cruz breakwater on the day of Line Z's opening. On 26 February 2024, the inauguration of the Salina Cruz breakwater was held as announced by López Obrador on 13 February 2024. He promised, at the time of the announcement, that this project would "allow the arrival of enormous ships, the biggest kinds", referring to
Post-Panamax ships, which are capable of carrying between 9,500 and 12,000 containers in one trip. Experts and the authorities of the port, however, disagree with the President's statement: an experienced naval
shipping agent stated that "by itself, the western breakwater does not offer an incentive for Post-Panamax ships to arrive at Salina Cruz." The port's authorities agree with this statement, but claim that the breakwater is the "first step" into being capable of receiving such ships. The second stage, starting after the inauguration, will consist on the construction of a
container terminal with
specialized cranes and freight train entrance areas, as well as one or two
mooring docks, each being at least long. The port's administration contemplates an investment of $14 billion pesos for the construction of these works, three times the amount that was invested on the breakwater. On 4 July 2024, the Corridor's first freight service after the inauguration of Line Z was performed, carrying 13,500 tons of
maize from
Topolobampo,
Sinaloa to
Chinameca, Veracruz. The train traveled from Salina Cruz to its destination, arriving after approximately 10 hours. On 11 September 2024, the long
Coatzacoalcos–Palenque Line (Line FA) was fully tested for the first time, and two days later, the line was officially inaugurated, in
Teapa,
Tabasco, by President López Obrador, accompanied by president
-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, the
Governor of Tabasco Carlos Manuel Merino Campos and governor-elect
Javier May Rodríguez. The train they took arrived at Palenque at approximately 17:00. On 21 November 2025, President Claudia Sheinbaum, along with Chiapas governor
Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar and authorities of the
Secretariat of the Navy, inaugurated the first phase of
Line K, which is expected to be fully completed in June 2026. She inaugurated four new train stations located on this line:
Tonalá, Chiapas;
Arriaga, Chiapas;
Chahuites, Oaxaca; and
Juchitán, Oaxaca. Her travel from Tonalá to
Ixtepec, Oaxaca, long (out of the total for the full line), took four hours to complete. She made a stop at Arriaga station, about 40 minutes after her departure from Tonalá, where she was received by a crowd of hundreds who gathered for her visit. There she announced that starting on the following day, November 22, people will be able to purchase tickets to travel to Ixtepec, and from there, to the rest of the isthmus. ==The corridor==