Cuba to send Mexico rocks as well as doctors

MEXICO CITY (AP) — After raising controversy by hiring hundreds of Cuban doctors, Mexico's president appeared ready Friday to anger critics again by announcing plans to buy crushed rock ballast for a tourist train project from Cuba.

A lot of people in Mexico already have doubts about President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's Maya Train project.

There are questions about its environmental impact and uncertain demand for the train service.

But López Obrador also faces a massive logistical challenge in his rush to finish the train within a year. Millions of tons of ballast are needed to stabilise rail ties, but no suitable rock is available for hundreds of miles. Most of it has to be trucked in from the Gulf coast, about 550 miles away.

López Obrador said the crushed rock could be brought in larger amounts by ship from Cuba but said he was aware that would spark criticism.

“I am going to say something so that our adversaries question us,” López Obrador said.

Pointing to a map of Cuba, he said, “It is very likely that for this stretch we will bring ballast from here.”

Even then, the ships carrying Cuban ballast would have to land at the port of Sisal, on the other side of the Yucatan peninsula, and be trucked about 180 miles to some train construction sites.

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