In a lecture to students at the Ibero-American University, civil engineering experts refuted the report by prosecutor Ernestina Godoy, who has charged the train driver and operators in the Interoceanic Railway accident. Many believe this charge is an attempt to cover up those truly responsible, including the project’s former supervisor, Gonzalo López Beltrán, son of President López Obrador. According to a report in Reforma, “the track design, dating back to the 1930s, is the same; it wasn’t designed for passengers. Furthermore, the trains were already scrap metal, the old wooden sleepers coexist haphazardly with the new concrete ones, and the rehabilitation was carried out according to the whims of the political climate.” Civil engineer Agustín Ortega García, specializing in roads and railways at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, stated: “The Z line of the Interoceanic Corridor is a historic track, and they rehabilitated it as best they could. However, it would have been desirable to change the turning radii, but that wasn’t done.” Manuel del Moral Dávila, a civil engineer from the UIA and a founding member of the National Council of Executives in Logistics and Supply Chain, warned about the sleepers, stating: “There are wooden sleepers and concrete sleepers, and while they can coexist, a transition must be made, otherwise you’re dealing with different masses and rigidities. There are technical solutions, such as using pads, and what we see here is a compromised track.” The experts added that “all of this, combined with the ballast, whose quality control has been questioned, is not the desired combination. However, this issue does not appear in the Attorney General’s initial report, and we believe it should be dismissed.”
Source: armandoortiz
