Officials in Mexico investigate switch failure in tourist train derailment
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A car of the tourist-focused Maya Train that derailed in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula appears to have left the track because an automated switch tripped as the train was passing, officials said Wednesday.
The accident Tuesday in Izamal caused no injuries, but left one of the train’s cars off the track and inclined onto another train.
Mexico’s army runs the train and also built much of it. On Wednesday, Gen. Óscar David Lozano said something had failed in the signaling system, because the switch received a signal to switch the track while the train was still moving straight over it.
Fortunately, it was moving slowly as it entered the station.
Lozano explained that the switches are automated and that the train’s engineer had been told to enter the station, but when only two of the train’s four cars had passed, the switch shifted the track and the car left the track.
“It’s an anomaly we have to analyze because that shouldn’t have happened,” he said. The analysis could take two weeks.
Tuesday’s train was traveling from the Caribbean resort of Cancun to Merida, Yucatan’s capital.
The train, which started running in late 2023, goes in a rough loop around the Yucatan Peninsula, covering 950 miles (1,500 kilometers). The idea was to carry tourists from the Caribbean resorts into the archaeological sites of the interior, but ridership has remained low.
