According to project coordinator Adiel Estrada, the railroad has created 800 direct jobs and some 2,400 indirect ones—a much-needed injection for a largely impoverished part of the country
A worker supervises construction work of a wave breaker in the port of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Image: Claudio Cruz / AFP
At Mexico's narrowest point, linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the government is building a railway rival to the Panama Canal with promises of economic bounty but amid fears of environmental and social harm.
The Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes already dreamed of such a crossing for humans and goods in the 16th century, but most plans came to naught and a prior, rudimentary connection was all but abandoned with the opening of the canal cutting through Panama in 1914.
Then, in 2020, work started on a new coast-to-coast link under the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
It comprises a 300-kilometer (186-mile) railway line from the Pacific port of Salina Cruz to Coatzacoalcos on the other side of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec—a region rich in biodiversity and Indigenous heritage.
The government has announced an investment of $2.85 billion.