Mexico Rail Freight Slips 4.7%, but Intermodal Grows

Mexico’s rail system moved 96.52 million net t from January to September 2025 (down 4.65% YoY), generating 70.26 billion t-km (down 3.71%), though ARTF reported t-km rebounded from April to September. Meanwhile, AAR’s Weekly Rail Traffic for the week ending Dec. 27, 2025 showed a split year-end signal for Mexico: carloads fell 12.9% while intermodal units rose 5.4%.

ARTF reports that industrial products remained the largest cargo group, representing 46.89% of tonnage in January–September 2025. Agricultural products followed at 29.81%, and petroleum and derivatives at 13.46%.

Foreign Trade Continued to Anchor Rail Demand

Rail freight in Mexico remained heavily tied to cross-border and port-linked flows. ARTF says foreign trade accounted for 76.07% of total rail tonnage in January–September 2025 and 78.53% of t-km. Imports totaled 55.91 million t (+1.32%) and exports 17.52 million t (+2.83%) over the period, while domestic traffic totaled 23.10 million t (down 20.41%).

ARTF reports that 40.82 million passengers were carried by rail from January–September 2025, up 9.47% year-on-year. The Buenavista-Cuautitlan Suburban Train represented 82.10% of passengers, followed by the Mexico–Toluca interurban line at 15.08% and the Mayan Train at 2.37%

Regarding safety and security, ARTF reports 10,538 operational reports received from concessionaires and assignees in January–September 2025, down 6.87% year-on-year. Within those reports, incidents fell to 900 (down 28.17%) and theft reports decreased to 2,923 (down 14.98%). ARTF says that its security and blockage figures are based on operational reports submitted to the regulator and should not be confused with formal crime complaints, recommending official public security datasets for crime incidence. 

AAR Weekly Rail Traffic for the Week Ending Dec. 27, 2025

In AAR’s Weekly Rail Traffic for the week ending Dec. 27, 2025, total US weekly rail traffic reached 392,295 carloads and intermodal units, up 0.7% from the same week in 2024. US carloads increased 2.5% to 188,673, while US intermodal decreased 1.0% to 203,622.

Across North America, which includes data on nine US, Canadian, and Mexican railroads, weekly totals reached 541,476 combined carloads and intermodal units, down 0.2% year-on-year. 

Mexico saw 9,551 carloads (down 12.9%) and 10,877 intermodal units (up 5.4%) in that week. For the first 52 weeks of 2025, AAR reported 1.24 million combined carloads and intermodal units on Mexican railroads, down 5.5% from the same point in 2024. The country remains heavily dependent on trucking for domestic freight. According to CANACAR, roads handled 57% of domestic freight in 2023, while rail contributed 13.25%.

In parallel, intermodal advocates point to estimates that intermodal can materially reduce logistics costs and emissions depending on the route, while improved corridor security can reduce theft exposure. The conversation is also shaped by capacity constraints in trucking and the basic arithmetic of rail scale, with the argument that one train can substitute for large numbers of highway truck moves on long-haul corridors.

"The growth of Mexico's export capacity is significant and continues to rise," said Paul Hirsch, AVP Mexico Business Unit, BNSF Railway, at the Mexico Business Summit. "Mexico's GDP growth over the last 10 years has averaged 1.5% or 1.6%. However, looking specifically at the exports we move to the United States over that same period, our growth has been 7%, four times more than Mexico's GDP growth," he added.