A few key paragraphs:

“The idea behind the Tren Maya is to draw the tourists of Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum to some of the poorest parts of southern Mexico, luring them away from the beach and toward the rest of the Yucatán.”

“The archaeologists face a succession of almost impossible decisions. They’ve been directed to scour Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula for undiscovered ruins and to rank them on a scale of one to four — from negligible importance to profound historical value. Anything judged less than a four will almost certainly be bisected by the rail line or destroyed altogether. The losses so far include millennia-old Maya homes and temples.”

“It’s so rich in archaeology that the only way to preserve everything would be to construct an upper story for the whole population,” said archaeologist Ivan Šprajc, a scholar of Maya civilization.”