Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (better known as N de M and especially in its final years as FNM) was Mexico's state owned railroad company from 1938 to 1998, and prior to 1938 (dating from the regime of Porfirio Díaz), a major railroad controlled by the government that linked Mexico City to the major cities of Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros on the U.S. border. The first trains to Nuevo Laredo from Mexico City began operating in 1903. History The beginnings of rail transport in Mexico date back to the concessions granted by Maximilian I of Mexico, mostly to foreign companies, and continued by Benito Juárez. In 1898, José Yves Limantour proposed a system of concessions of the railway companies on the future lines to be built from 1900. That same year the Secretariat of the Treasury promulgated the first General Railway Law. This law established a system whereby concessions would be granted to companies to lay railway lines only when they satisfied the economic needs of the country and linked the interior of the Republic with its most important commercial ports. The original N de M company was created in 1903 during the tenure of Porfirio Díaz, and it was through said company that most of the Mexican railway network was developed. In fact, before the Porfiriato, only the Mexico City–Veracruz segment was in operation, since Gen. Díaz's greatest interest was to develop the country industrially, he had a special affinity for the railroad. Pursuant to an agreement signed on February 29, 1908, N de M absorbed the Mexican Central Railroad (Ferrocarril Central Mexicano, first section from Mexico City to León, Guanajuato, opened in 1882) in 1909, thus acquiring a second border gateway at Ciudad Juárez (adjacent to El Paso, Texas). This gave the Mexican federal government a 58% stake in N de M. The N de M was fully nationalized by President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río in 1938, and privatized in 1994–1998 by Presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Ernesto Zedillo. N de M operated most railway trackage through the central and northeastern regions of the republic. The Ferrocarril del Pacífico (or Pacific Railroad) and the Ferrocarril Chihuahua al Pacífico operated railroads in the northwest. In 1995, the Mexican government announced that FNM would be privatized and divided into four main systems. As part of the restructuring for privatization, FNM suspended passenger rail service in 1997, and the