Tag Archives: Panama Railway

The Panama Railway today

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The current Panama Railway route stretches 47.6 miles (76.6 km) across the Isthmus of Panama from Colón to Panama City (by way of Gatun lake, Bujio, Barbacoas, Matachin, and Summit). After World War II, few additional improvements were made to the Panama Railway, and it was allowed to decline after the U.S. government handed over control to the government of Panama in 1979.

However, the Panama Railway has a long established history of surviving against the odds. On June 19, 1998, the government of Panama turned over control to the private Panama Canal Railway Company (“PCRC”), a joint venture between the Kansas City Southern Railroad and privately held Lanigan Holdings, LLC. Between 2000 and 2001, a large project was completed, which upgraded the railway to handle large shipping containers, and allowed it to complement the Panama Canal in cargo transport. The line is now single track with some strategically placed sections of double track to allow trains to pass each other. Since August 2009, motive power has been provided by ten former Amtrak F40PHs, five EMD SD60s and two EMD SD40-2s from the Kansas City Southern Railroad, and one GP10 diesel locomotives.

The railroad also has a fleet of several historic passenger cars in service, including PCRC #102, which is a vintage dome car first built for the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1938. Its luxurious passenger service allows travellers to enjoy a journey through the lush jungles of Panama alongside the scenic Panama Canal. The new railway caters to both business executives commuting between Panama City and Colon, and tourists travelling from Colon’s cruise terminals to Panama City.

The Panama Canal Railway is one of the great train rides of the world. Although short and comparatively expensive, the history and scenery make it a bargain. The railroad follows a picturesque path across the Isthmus of Panama between Panama’s two largest cities, Colon and Panama City. The line parallels the Panama Canal for most of its route, passing through lush rainforests, cruising alongside the Canal’s locks, through the historic Gaillard Cut and gliding over slender causeways in Gatun Lake. It effectively links one of the World’s less travelled but most attractive tourism corridors between Colon on the Atlantic Coast and Panama on the Pacific. Passengers disembarking at the Colon 2000 Cruise Terminal, the Gatun Yacht Club, or at Pier 6 in Cristobal can enjoy different shore excursions offered in Panama and ride the historic railroad as did our forefathers in their quest for wealth during the California Gold Rush.

The Panama Railway and the Canal

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Completing construction of the Panama Railway was not the end of their problems. No one had any experience of building a railway in such tropical conditions before, indeed at the time of opening, commercial public railways services were less than 30 years old. Wooden bridges that had served in the US, quickly decayed in the tropical heat and had to be replaced with iron bridges, wooden trestles had to be replaced with gravel embankments and the original pine sleepers proved to have a life of less than a year in the Panamanian climate.

Six heavy locomotives and four lighter ones provided the initial motive-power. Trains were made up from a variety of rolling stock that included 22 passenger cars (each with a capacity of 60 passengers), 51 closed boxcars and 72 flat cars. On opening the First class passenger fare was $25 (one way), children under 12 years old travelled for $6.25, the second class fare was ‘only’ $10 and personal baggage ten cents a pound. Mail was charged at .22 cents a pound, coal was $5.00/ton, first class freight in boxes or bales was .50 cents a cubic foot. All freight charges were paid in gold. The Panama Railroad was a very lucrative investment. From 1855 and 1867 more than $700 million in gold was carried on the railroad without the loss of a single dollar, and earning the railway’s owners 0.25% in fees.

The completion of the Central Pacific – Union Pacific railroad at Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869 was the turning point in the fortunes of the Panama Railroad. By 1877 the Panama Railroad had revenues of $1,284,000 and operating expenses of $998,000, leaving a profit of just $286,000. Essentially the railroad was bankrupt. On Wall Street the stock plummeted from $369 per share in 1874 to less than $52 in 1877.

Again though, just when things were looking bleak, the railway again managed to turn things around. The existence of the railway was one of the key factors that contributed s to the selection of Panama as the site of the canal. In 1881 the French Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique purchased controlling interest in the Panama Railway Company. It was then used extensively to provide logistical support for the can al construction effort. When the French Canal effort failed, the value of the railway was not lost on the Americans and in 1904, the United States government under Theodore Roosevelt purchased the railway from the French canal company. At that time, railway assets included some 75 miles (121 km) of track, 35 locomotives, 30 passenger cars, and 900 freight cars.

Under the Americans, the railway enjoyed initial investment, with much of the rolling stock being replaced. However, investment was not maintained and the railway went into decline as the growth of road transport took much of its traffic.

The Construction of the Panama Railway

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The American businessman William H. Aspinwall had created a company and raised funds to build a railway across the Isthmus of Panama, and connect with his San Francisco steamships at Panama City. The project’s timing could not have been better, the discovery of gold in California in January 1848 created a flood of immigrants desperate to reach California …. and a railway across the Isthmus offered the quickest route. In May 1850, the railroad began construction; but very quickly, the difficulty of the scheme became apparent.

Much of the route was through jungle and swamp, the heat was unbearable, mosquitoes (carrying dengue fever, yellow fever, and malaria) were everywhere and for more than half the year, the deluges of rain meant many workers were toiling in water up to four feet deep. The swamps were so deep that they often required more than a hundred feet of gravel backfill to create a stable surface on which the rail lines could be laid. The only power equipment they had came from the railway locomotives and could only reach as far as the railhead, most of the work had to be done by hand using picks, shovels and mule carts.

The cost of constructing the railway was huge, both in financial terms and in the human costs.

Cholera, Yellow fever and malaria took a deadly toll among the workers, and despite the continual supply of large numbers of new workers, there were times when the work stalled for simple lack of healthy labourers. Labourers came from as far away as Ireland, India, China and Australia. The project was facing failure when in November 1851, two large steamships with about 1,000 passengers were forced to shelter in Limón Bay, Panama due to a hurricane in the Caribbean. With the docks built and 7 miles of railway line completed, an emergency service was laid on, carrying passengers (on flatbed cars used for transporting railway sleepers and materials), at the extremely expensive rates of 50 cents per mile for passengers and $3 per 100 pounds of baggage. This windfall saved the company and made it an ongoing money earner. The directors of the company immediately ordered passenger cars, and the railway began commercial operations despite having 40 miles of track still to be laid! Services continued as the line was being built and provided both direct funds and an income against which more finance could be raised.

The complete project took over $8,000,000 to build (8 times the original estimate) and cost between 5,000 and 10,000 lives. Over 170 bridges and culverts had to be built. It was completed in January 1855 and the first train ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific on Sunday, January 28th. The single-track, 47 mile long railroad was the first to connect the oceans.