This is a view as the new Tren Suburbano approaches Buenavista station before making its return trip to Lecheria. The train, a joint project between federal and local governments, is supposed to ease congestion between the center of Mexico City and its outlying urban sprawl to the north in Estado de Mexico, using existing rail corridors, as its exhaustively detailed Wiki entry shows us. Future lines are in the works.
The stations are spotless and choked with sleek advertising, and the trains are clean and modern:
But weren't very crowded. That's inside a car in the late evening on a weekday -- heading south, granted. Still, could it be that D.F. commuters are strongly accustomed to taking peseros and combis when traveling to and from the Edomex, even though those take way longer than the fast, secure new tren?
A one-way trip from one end of the current Tren Suburbano line to the other costs $12.50 pesos. Fare is determined by distance traveled, not the flat rate of $2 pesos for a journey of any length in the metro, which anyway doesn't go that far north and won't be anytime soon, with the upcoming Linea 12 finally bringing lateral service to the D.F.'s south.
