A freight train accident occurred on the Interoceanic Railroad in southern Mexico on Tuesday night less than seven months after a passenger train derailment on the same line in which 14 people were killed.
No one was injured in the latest accident, according to the Ministry of the Navy (Semar) and the government agency directly responsible for the railroad that connects Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, on Mexico’s Pacific coast to Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, on the Gulf coast.
The accident — widely reported as a derailment — occurred on Line Z, as the railroad is called, in the municipality of Asunción Ixtaltepec, Oaxaca. The El Universal newspaper published photos showing one section of the train lying on its side next to the railroad.
Semar and the Isthmus of Tehuantepc Interoceanic Corridor (CIIT), a decentralized public agency under the jurisdiction of the Navy Ministry, said in a statement that an accident involving “two articulated units” of a freight train occurred on Tuesday night. Each articulated unit was made up of two train cars, they said.
Semar and CIIT said that no one was injured in the incident and there was no impact on the local population.
“Safety protocols were immediately activated and specialized personnel began maneuvers to remove the units and clear the tracks,” the government departments said, adding that the CIIT is carrying out the “corresponding technical inspection to determine the causes” of the accident.
The railroad — modernized during the 2018-24 presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador — continues to operate normally, the statement concluded.
However, passenger trains are not currently running between Salina Cruz and Coatzcoalcos as services were canceled after the derailment on Dec. 28, 2025. President Claudia Sheinbaum said last month that passenger service would not resume until early 2027.
Sheinbaum: ‘The train cars didn’t completely fall’
At her morning press conference on Thursday, Sheinbaum downplayed the seriousness of the accident.
“Rather than a derailment, [the train] moved,” she said.
“The train cars didn’t completely fall, but it was an incident,” Sheinbaum said. “It was reported yesterday by the Navy and inspections are being carried out.”
Asked whether the accident would have an impact on the “reactivation” of the Interoceanic Railroad passenger train, the president said the government would report on that at a later date.
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The modernized railroad between Salina Cruz and Coatzacoalcos has been touted as a rival to the Panama Canal given that it can be used to move freight between the Pacific coast and the Gulf coast, or vice versa. For example, freight from Asia can be unloaded from a ship in Salina Cruz and travel across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec by rail before being reloaded onto a ship in Coatzacoalcos to continue its journey to the Gulf or Atlantic coast of the United States.
Former Navy Minister José Rafael Ojeda Durán asserted in 2023 that Mexico would become a “world shipping power” thanks to the construction of a trade corridor between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
With reports from El Universal
