Line 5, also known as the Yellow Line from its color on the system map, is a

rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT) or heavy rail, commonly referred to as metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport that is generally built in urban areas. A grade separation, grade separated rapid transit line below ground su ...

line of the

Mexico City Metro The Mexico City Metro () is a rapid transit system that serves Greater Mexico City, the metropolitan area of Mexico City, including some municipalities in the State of Mexico. Operated by the Sistema de Transporte Colectivo (STC), it is the Lis ...

network. It travels along the

boroughs A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

of Gustavo A. Madero,

Cuauhtémoc Cuauhtémoc (, ), also known as Cuauhtemotzín, Guatimozín, or Guatémoc, was the Aztec ruler ('' tlatoani'') of Tenochtitlan from 1520 to 1521, and the last Aztec Emperor. The name Cuauhtemōc means "one who has descended like an eagle", an ...

and

Venustiano Carranza José Venustiano Carranza de la Garza (; 29 December 1859 – 21 May 1920), known as Venustiano Carranza, was a Mexican land owner and politician who served as President of Mexico from 1917 until his assassination in 1920, during the Mexican Re ...

in northern, northeastern and eastern

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, serving thirteen stations. The line was inaugurated on 19 December 1981, going from Pantitlán to Consulado station. In 1982, the line was expanded twice, first from Consulado to La Raza station on 1 July, and later from La Raza to Politécnico station on 30 August. Line 5 was built by Mexican construction company

Empresas ICA Empresas ICA is a construction company that was founded on 4 July 1947, by Mexican civil engineer Bernardo Quintana Arrioja. The company has built multiple landmarks, buildings, and facilities in Mexico, including the Estadio Azteca, the modern ...

and it runs at grade and underground levels. The

interchange station An interchange station or a transfer station is a train station for more than one railway route in a public transport system that allows passengers to change from one route to another, often without having to leave a station or pay an additional ...

s are Instituto del Petróleo ( Line 6), La Raza ( Line 3), Consulado ( Line 4), Oceanía ( Line B), and Pantitlán (Lines 1, 9 and A). The line serves the

Mexico City International Airport Mexico City International Airport (); officially ''Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez'' (Benito Juárez International Airport) is the primary international airport serving Greater Mexico City. It is the List of the busiest airports in Me ...

(AICM) at Terminal Aérea station and connects with other transport systems in the city, including the

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...

, the Metrobús and the

Mexibús Mexibús is a bus rapid transit (BRT) system that is located in the Greater Mexico City part of the State of Mexico, which surrounds Mexico City proper. It is operated by Transmasivo S.A. (Lines I and IV), Transcomunicador S.A. (Line ...

systems. In 2019, Line 5 had a total ridership of 86,512,999 passengers, averaging 237,021 passengers per day and making it one of the least used lines on the network.

History and construction

Line 5 of the

was built in early 1980s by Cometro, a subsidiary of

. The line was inaugurated on 19 December 1981 and originally ran from Pantitlán (in

) to Consulado station (in the limits of Venustiano Carranza and Gustavo A. Madero), with seven operative stations and a long track. Pantitlán, Oceanía,

Aragón Aragon ( , ; Spanish and ; ) is an autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces (from north to south): Huesca, Zaragoza, a ...

, Eduardo Molina and Consulado stations were built at-grade level, while Hangares and Terminal Aérea were built underground. Between Consulado and Eduardo Molina a station named Simón Bolivar was planned but never built due to budget constraints. The line was expanded northbound to

La Raza In Mexico, the Spanish expression ('the people'; literally: 'the race') has historically been used to refer to the mixed-race populations (primarily though not always exclusively in the Western Hemisphere), considered as an ethnic or racia ...

station, in Gustavo A. Madero, slightly passing through the

borough at Misterios station. Valle Gómez and Misterios stations were built underground, while La Raza was built at-grade level. The expansion was opened on 1 July 1982. The second and last expansion was northbound toward Politécnico station, in Gustavo A. Madero with all the stations built at grade, and it was opened on 30 August 1982. During the early excavations, a road that connected

Tenochtitlan , also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear, but the date 13 March 1325 was chosen in 1925 to celebrate the 600th annivers ...

with the

Tepeyac Tepeyac or the Hill of Tepeyac, historically known by the names Tepeyacac and Tepeaquilla, is located inside Gustavo A. Madero, D.F., Gustavo A. Madero, the northernmost ''Alcaldía'' or borough of Mexico City. According to the Catholic traditio ...

hill was found in the Valle Gómez–Misterios stretch. The road was built with materials dated from the Mesoamerican Postclassic Period. In Peñon de los Baños (near Terminal Aérea station), workers found the remains of mamuts, bisons, horses, camels, birds and fishes, as well as a

Teotihuacan Teotihuacan (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'', ; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is ...

settlement. In 2015, during an evening with heavy rain and hail, two trains crashed while both were going toward Politécnico station. One person indirectly died and twelve others resulted injured. In 2021, the whole line ceased operations for three days after a fire occurred on the STC's Central Control Center.

Planned expansion

During the 1980s and 1990s, it was proposed to expand Line 5 northbound to the municipality of

Tlalnepantla de Baz Tlalnepantla de Baz ( Otomi: ) is one of 125 municipalities of the state of Mexico, north of Mexico City. The municipal seat and largest city in the municipality is the city of Tlalnepantla. ''Tlalnepantla'' comes from the Náhuatl words ''tlall ...

, in the

State of Mexico The State of Mexico, officially just Mexico, is one of the 32 federal entities of the United Mexican States. Colloquially known as Edomex (from , the abbreviation of , and ), to distinguish it from the name of the whole country, it is the mo ...

. The expansion was proposed again for the 2018 master plan, and if built it would connect with the

Tren Suburbano The Tren Suburbano () is an electric suburban rail system in Mexico City. Line 1 is operated by Ferrocarriles Suburbanos with Concession (contract), concessioned trains from Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF). It was design ...

's Tlalnepantla Station.

Rolling stock

Line 5 has had different types of rolling stock. As of August 2021, 25 trains are operating in the line, with a combination of (coded as MP-68R93) and (coded as NM-73AR) rubber-tired metro trains. The MP-68 trains were built in 1968 in France by

Alstom Alstom SA () is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional ...

and they were modeled after the

MP 59 The MP 59 (; ) was a rubber-tyred variant of electric multiple units used on the Paris Métro system in service from 1963 to 2024. Manufactured by a consortium between CIMT-Lorraine (body), Jeumont-Schneider (control circuits), Alsthom a ...

trains on the

Paris Metro Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. With a service life of 25 years, all the MP-68 trains were restored and refurbished by Bombardier in 1993. The second type, the NM-73 model, were built in 1973 in Mexico by Concarril with the supervision of Alstom. Both models received further restoration works in 2016. Other models that have operated at Line 5 and have been removed from circulation there include the MP-68R96C, the , the and the .

Route

Politécnico station, the northern terminus of the line, lies next to

Eje Central The Eje Central or Avenida Lázaro Cárdenas is an avenue in the Cuauhtémoc and Gustavo A. Madero boroughs of Mexico City, Mexico. It is part of a system called eje vial of roadways built by Carlos Hank González to modernize Mexico City for i ...

Avenue (at the section named 100 Metros Avenue), near the

National Polytechnic Institute National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

main campus. The line heads southeast along the avenue to Instituto del Petróleo station, serving the

Mexican Petroleum Institute The Mexican Petroleum Institute (in Spanish: ''Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo, IMP'') is a public research organization dedicated to developing technical solutions, conducting basic and applied research and providing specialized training to Pem ...

. The track continues to Autobuses del Norte station, located next to the city's . As the line reaches La Raza station, it moves from Eje Central to

Circuito Interior The Circuito Interior Bicentenario ("Bicentennial Inner Loop") or more commonly, Circuito Interior or even more simply Circuito, is a urban freeway (in parts) and at-grade boulevard (in others), forming a loop around the central neighborhoods o ...

(at the section named Río Consulado Avenue), entering the first tunnel toward two underground stations: Misterios, near , and Valle Gómez, in the neighborhood of the same name. The line goes back to the surface to avoid a conflict with the underground and reaches Consulado station. It continues along the avenue to Eduardo Molina and Aragón stations until the intersection of Circuito Interior and Oceanía Avenue where Oceanía station is located. Circuito Interior changes its section name from Río Consulado Avenue to Puerto Aéreo Boulevard. From there, the line goes under another tunnel toward Terminal Aérea station, which serves the city's airport. The track moves from Puerto Aéreo Boulevard to Eje 1 Norte, at the section named Fuerza Aérea Avenue, and arrives at Hangares station, located next to the airport's hangars. The line continues and leaves the tunnel; Eje 1 Norte changes to the next section, named Miguel Lebrija Avenue, and reaches the southeastern terminal of Pantitlán, where it connects with three other metro lines.

Station list

The stations from east to north-west:

Pictograms

Like the rest of the system, Line 5 stations have

pictograms A pictogram (also pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto) is a graphical symbol that conveys meaning through its visual resemblance to a physical object. Pictograms are used in systems of writing and visual communication. A pictography is a wri ...

. Most of them allude to elements surrounding their respective areas. The term "Pantitlán", which derives from the

Nahuatl Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

"between flags" and has

pre-Hispanic In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European c ...

origins, refers to the region in which flags were erected to mark specific locations of

Lake Texcoco Lake Texcoco (; ) was a natural saline lake within the ''Anahuac'' or Valley of Mexico. Lake Texcoco is best known for an island situated on the western side of the lake where the Mexica built the city of Mēxihco Tenōchtitlan, which would la ...

where boat navigation was hazardous due to the rapid currents. Hangares features a

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

inside a

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

since it is located adjacent to the

's hangars. Terminal Aérea displays a

control tower Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled a ...

and an

airliner An airliner is a type of airplane for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. The modern and most common variant of the airliner is a long, tube shaped, and jet powered aircraft. The largest ...

to reference the airport's main metro station. Oceanía is named after Oceanía Avenue; thus, the authorities selected a

kangaroo Kangaroos are marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use, the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

to represent the continent. Aragón station shows a

squirrel Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae (), a family that includes small or medium-sized rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrel ...

, an animal typically found in parks. At the time of its opening, the station was the closest to San Juan de Aragón Park. Eduardo Molina station is named after the namesake avenue and its pictogram features two hands holding water, referencing the mural ''El agua, origen de la vida'' by

Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...

, painted inside the main building of the

Cárcamo de Dolores The ''Cárcamo de Dolores'' ( Sump of Dolores) is a hydraulic structure located on the Second Section of Chapultepec Park, in Mexico City, comprising the building designed by architect Ricardo Rivas, inside the originally underwater mural ''Agua, ...

, a hydraulic sump designed by Ricardo Rivas and Eduardo Molina. The logo for Consulado station depicts a water duct, representing the ducted part of the underground river of the same name. Valle Gómez station is named after the namesake neighborhood, where

agave ''Agave'' (; ; ) is a genus of monocots native to the arid regions of the Americas. The genus is primarily known for its succulent and xerophytic species that typically form large Rosette (botany), rosettes of strong, fleshy leaves. Many plan ...

plants grew. Misterios station is named after the Calzada de los Misterios Avenue, whose main attractions are multiple hermitages featuring the

Mysteries of the Rosary The Rosary (; , in the sense of "crown of roses" or "garland of roses"), formally known as the Psalter of Jesus and Mary (Latin: Psalterium Jesu et Mariae), also known as the Dominican Rosary (as distinct from other forms of rosary such as the ...

; the station is represented by one of those buildings. La Raza station's logo represents the '' Monumento a la Raza'' pyramid, found nearby the station. Autobuses del Norte station displays an

intercity bus An intercity bus service (North American English) or intercity coach service (British English and Commonwealth English), also called a long-distance, express, over-the-road, commercial, long-haul, or highway bus or coach service, is a public t ...

as it is adjacent to the city's North Bus station. Instituto del Petróleo is named after the

headquarters and it is represented by an oil

derrick A derrick is a lifting device composed at minimum of one guyed mast, as in a gin pole, which may be articulated over a load by adjusting its Guy-wire, guys. Most derricks have at least two components, either a guyed mast or self-supporting tower ...

. Politécnico station is found near the

; thus, it displays a stylized version of the institution's logotype.

Ridership

According to the data provided by the authorities since the 2000s, Line 5 is one of the least used of the system. In 2019, the line registered 86,512,999 entrances, averaging 237,021 commuters per day. Pantitlán is the busiest station on the line—and one of the busiest of the system—averaging 100,260 entrances that year; in contrast, Consulado, Hangares and Valle Gómez stations averaged fewer than 5,000 passengers per day and consistently rank among the least used on the Metro network.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1981 establishments in Mexico Railway lines opened in 1981 5