{"id":20874,"date":"2022-05-04T13:09:28","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T18:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/?p=20874"},"modified":"2022-05-04T13:09:28","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T18:09:28","slug":"the-multiple-memories-of-the-train-in-yucatan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/history-and-culture\/the-multiple-memories-of-the-train-in-yucatan\/","title":{"rendered":"The multiple memories of the train in Yucatan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Read about \u201cThe multiple memories of the train in Yucata\u0301n\u201d through the words of Valentina Lara and Marianela Porraz.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cLiving in my childhood in the Garci\u0301a Ginere\u0301s neighborhood, I have a vivid memory of the sound of the train in the middle of the afternoon among the chirping of birds. It was the freight train, whose passage was a slow, almost infinite rumble.\u201d<\/h5>\n
– Marianela Porraz Castillo<\/h5>\n
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In the memories of the inhabitants of many towns and cities of the Yucatecan entity, in particular of the oldest inhabitants, there are a large number of images of this type. But the multiple stories of the train in Yucatan have their origin in the industrial development of the region, between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, and very particularly in the production of Henequen. The first railway in Yucatan was inaugurated in 1875 between the Me\u0301rida-Progreso section. This route served to increase the transfer of henequen bales to the port, for shipment to different commercial destinations.<\/p>\n

Between 1883 and 1913, multiple new roads were opened, connecting the territory and making it possible to increase trade. In 1902, the various concessions and companies that developed the railways in Yucata\u0301n were grouped into a single entity: \u201cLos Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucata\u0301n\u201d, which managed the network for 80 years. From the henequen crisis, which happened gradually from the 1980s, a progressive abandonment of the railway infrastructures was generated. Given this phenomenon, various urban voids were generated in the city of Me\u0301rida and in different parts of the state.<\/p>\n

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Merida, Yucatan train rails <\/b>
Photography: M\u00f3nica P\u00e9rez<\/p><\/div>\n

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These \u201cvoids\u201d or abandoned land constitute, in terms of urban and regional planning, two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, they are an opportunity to carry out a reconversion, that is, when a change of use is proposed to take advantage of the location and the site’s resources. On the other hand, one of the risks that this entails is the possible \u201cgentrification\u201d of the area, that is, the reoccupation of the space itself or of adjoining spaces by another socioeconomic or foreign class (Checa Artasu 2010).<\/p>\n

An example of this is the old Me\u0301rida railway station. This building was designed by the English architect Charles James Sculthorpe Hall (1865-1933), inaugurated in 1920. Along with this building, the train tracks and the various freight hangars formed a vast area in the east of the city, which its inhabitants colloquially called \u201cLa Plancha\u201d. As of 2004, the station is proposed as the headquarters of the Superior School of Arts of Yucatan, followed by a rehabilitation project. However, the rest of the hangars and tracks have remained unoccupied\u00b9.<\/p>\n

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Abandoned land, M\u00e9rida, Yucat\u00e1n <\/b>
Photography: M\u00f3nica P\u00e9rez<\/p><\/div>\n

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Another interesting example is the community tourism work that has been implemented in the town of Cuzama\u0301 and its surroundings for more than two decades. There being a large number of \u201cCenotes\u201d or sinkholes on the site, as well as railway tracks, they decided to install a series of \u201ctrucks\u201d or carts pulled by mules to carry out a low environmental impact project self-managed by them.<\/p>\n

Today, the rumblings of the \u201cMayan Train\u201d2 project reveal new problems in terms of mobility and responsible management of the territory. However, the remains of the train continue their passive existence throughout the peninsula. For land managers, urban planners, architects and landscapers, reconverting these infrastructures into spaces of memory, culture and biodiversity represents one of the great challenges of our century.<\/p>\n

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Trucks, Cuzam\u00e1, Yucat\u00e1n
Photography: Just Booked A Trip, CC BY 2.0 <https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0>, v\u00eda Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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References:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Checa-Artasu Marti\u0301n Manuel (2010), \u201cGentrificacio\u0301n y cultura: algunas reflexiones\u201d, Biblio 3W (Revista bibliogra\u0301fica de geografi\u0301a y ciencias sociales de la Universidad de Barcelona), Vol. XVI, no 914.
\nEditorial del Diario del sureste (2015) \u201cLos Primeros Tiempos De Los Ferrocarriles En Yucata\u0301n\u201d Diario del sureste, disponible en https:\/\/www.diariodelsureste.com.mx\/los-primeros- tiempos-de-los-ferrocarriles-en-yucatan\/
\nLara Can Valentina (2015), Huerto urbano La Plancha en Me\u0301rida, Yucata\u0301n, tesis de maestri\u0301a en arquitectura del paisaje, Universidad Marista de Me\u0301rida<\/p>\n

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\u00b9The residents of the area got together in 2014 to demand a park and urban equipment project, which would finally give a better quality of life to the area.
\nSo far, and despite the existence of several proposals, no project has yet been finalized on the site.<\/p>\n

\u00b2We refer to the project promoted in the government of President Andre\u0301s Manuel Lo\u0301pez Obrador.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read about \u201cThe multiple memories of the train in Yucata\u0301n\u201d through the words of Valentina Lara and Marianela Porraz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":206,"featured_media":20772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[332],"class_list":["post-20874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-culture","tag-ed-22-landscape-and-mobility"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20875,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20874\/revisions\/20875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}