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The Coming of the Railroad

By the middle decades of the nineteenth century, agriculturalists and other producers came to fix their hopes for a better future upon railroad transportation. Mexico's first major railway began early, on paper at least, as a concession of the national government in 1837 for a rail link between Mexico City and Veracruz. Little substantive progress took place, however, until Manuel Escandón and his brother Antonio gained the rights to the route 20 years later. While Manuel died in 1862, Antonio remained the dominant force in the company even after its incorporation in London as the Mexican Imperial Railway in 1864, providing a significant share of its financing and ultimately persuading the fiscally hardpressed governments of the Restored Republic to renew the concession and to subsidize the remaining construction. With the 263-mile (424-kilometer) route between Mexico City and Veracruz finished amid national fanfare in 1873, the Ferrocarril Mexicano came to symbolize the contradictory dilemmas over material progress that Mexico faced between 1867 and 1880.

The governments of the Restored Republic were determined to improve transport and communications as the most effective strategy for overcoming Mexico's economic underdevelopment. The renewal of the Mexicano's concession in 1867 obliged the federal government to an annual subsidy of 560,000 pesos over 25 years in addition to various land concessions and import-export tax exemptions. At the same time, the government sought to extend Mexico's limited telegraph and mail facilities. Although Mexico had gained its first working telegraph in 1851, by 1867 the country possessed only 1,165 miles (1,874 kilometers) of line, connecting the national capital with the cities of Guanajuato, León, Oaxaca, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, and Veracruz. Upon taking power, the new Liberal government of Benito Juárez charged General Mariano Escobedo with the task of building a line from San Luis Potosí to Matamoros, thus linking Mexico with the United States and with the transatlantic cable to Europe. In 1871, it created the Administración General de Correos and continued the practice of earlier post-Independence regimes in requiring road and rail transport concessionaires to carry the mail. By the end of the Restored Republic, Mexico had over 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) of telegraph lines with roughly equal shares belonging to private enterprises (including the Ferrocarril Mexicano) and the federal government and with a small portion lying in the hands of state governments.