In the early 1950s, by order of President Miguel Alemán Valdés, land in the municipality of Tepeapulco, Hidalgo, 95 kilometers north of Mexico City, was settled in what was intended as a national model: the industrial area of Ciudad Sahagún.

In the late 1980s, Concarril was taken over by Bombardier, a Canadian equity firm and its transformation brought less paternalistic policies affecting unionized workers, who until then enjoyed privileges such as exemption from property taxes and utilities, which the company absorbed.

Since 2005 new businesses have arrived in the industrial area of Ciudad Sahagún, the result of several government attempts to restore the city's economy.

Bombardier split construction of 204 Flexity Outlook streetcars, for the Toronto Transit Commission, and 182 Flexity Freedom light rail vehicles for service in the Greater Toronto Area between its Ciudad Sahagún factory, and one of its factories in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Reports in the Canadian press repeated claims that the workers in the Thunder Bay plant that the work done in Ciudad Sahagún was incompetent.