Tag Archives: Trains in Panama

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.

The Story of Panama City’s Trams

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The Panama City Metro system, currently under construction is not the city’s first light rail scheme. Twice before, Panama City has had tramways, while even Colon had a horse-drawn tram system and started work on an electrical system (though this was never completed and put into operation). Nowadays, the only evidence that these ever existed are old photographs, postcards and other memorabilia, none of the tram cars, rails or overhead electric supply lines remain.

The first street railway was built while Panama was still part of Colombia. On the 16th of May 1889 the Colombian Ministry of Public Works let a contract with a Colombian company. Although that company failed to complete construction, the contract was purchased by foreign investors who created the United Electric Tramways Company in London on 22 October 1892. On the 1st of October 1893 service was inaugurated on a Panama City line that was built with British financing German electrical technology, provided by Siemens. The route ran along Avenida Central, and was one of the first few electric tramways to be built in Latin America. Colombia’s civil war (known as the “Thousand Days War”) of 1899 to 1902 caused tram services to be ended.

Following independence from Colombia, and while the new canal construction was underway, the Panamanian government let a contract for a new tramway in Panama City in 1906. As before, the initial attempt to construct the new line failed and the contract was put up for bid once more. The new owners were the Panama Tramways Company, incorporated in New Jersey. In 1912, construction resumed, and the new narrow-gauge (42”) opened on August 1st 1913. By 1916, a visiting wrier was able to note that Panama City:

“…has two light and power plants, a gas plant and an excellent tramway service which communicates with the towns of Ancon and Balboa on the Canal Zone, as well as with the suburban district of the Sabanas; one of the street car branches runs to the Balboa docks at the terminus of the Canal where the great steamers arrive.”

Trams continued to run of Panama City’s streets, tough subject to increased competition from cars and buses. Panama City’s last streetcar ran on the night of Saturday 31st May 1941.