AUSTIN, Texas — A Congressman is asking Amtrak to consider service that could give the passenger carrier a connection to Mexico.
KSTA radio reports that U.S. Rep Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) met with Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner and Chief Financial Officer Tracie Winbigler about the possibility of Amtrak resurrecting long-discontinued service between San Antonio and Laredo, Texas. This would connect to a proposed service between Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey, Mexico, currently under consideration by the Mexican government.
Not clear is whether Amtrak would operate into Mexico, the Mexican operation would enter the U.S., or passengers would have to make other arrangements between the two.
Cuellar said the proposal will require state permission to proceed as well as a study on financing and construction.
“Texas may be a little resistant to this, but we’re hoping the state of Texas would look at this as a public-private partnership and the billions of dollars the federal government could use [for the construction],” Cuellar told KSTA. “You’re talking about up to $12 billion that could be used for this new corridor.” Those funds would be available under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed last year.
The San Antonio-Laredo route was not among potential new services on an Amtrak wish list released last year [see “Amtrak unveils ‘Connects US’ map …,” Trains News Wire, March 31, 2021].
The closest Amtrak has come to operating to Mexico was the Inter American, which began as a Fort Worth-to-Laredo train on Jan. 28, 1973. It was eventually extended to St. Louis and then Chicago, becoming what is now the Texas Eagle when the San Antonio-Laredo segment was dropped in October 1981.
There were never any through cars into Mexico during the Amtrak era; passengers had to make their own arrangements between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, but connections there gradually deteriorated from tenuous to non-existent. Although a Chicago-Laredo sleeping car was operated into 1981, the southbound train arrived into Laredo at 1:20 a.m., the train to Mexico City had already departed at 6:55 p.m. Northbound connections were possible during most of the train’s existence, but at the end, the northbound Inter-American departed Laredo at 5:55 a.m., an hour and a half before the train from Mexico City arrived into Nuevo Laredo.
— Correspondent Bob Johnston contributed to this report.
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