Mexico’s president Lopez Obrador launched four major industrial projects as a part of his so-called fourth transformation, promoted as a turning point after decades of structural reforms and an export based economy. A new oil refinery and metropolitan airport and two trains that connect southeastern Mexico with the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are currently underway. However, these projects did not steer away from Mexico’s violent history of dispossession, land grabbing, racism and corruption. The Mayan Train is a major urban and land development project spearheaded as a railway; it renews the hopes of agro, industrial, real estate and tourist industry tycoons of connecting the regional economy to international markets and the Gulf of Mexico. Such aspirations date back to Yucatan’s hacienda period known for enslaving the Mayan people in henequen plantations. As cities sprawl beyond a sustainable future and the delicate karstic aquifer is progressively polluted by industrial and urban expansion, this project threatens the livelihood of the peninsula and the hopes of a more just future for urban and rural populations alike.