To anyone interested in looking at some recent Costa Rican Railroad pictures please go to http://espanol.geocities.com/rieles127cr/rieles127CR-2.html
I’ve got many more as well as some digital videoclips which I’ll gladly share upon request.
Rodolfo
rzuniga@albion.edu
Are the railways in Costa Rica operating again? I had heard they were shut down after a hurricane damaged much of the electrified line on the East Coast. Costa Rica had the OTHER Pacific Electric!
Muchisimas gracias, Rodolfo. Muy interesante. Sincde you furnished your e-mail address on your first post, I will contect there. I have an idea and many questions.
Gregg,
Just two sections of the whole system is running today. The hurricane you refer to just damaged a short section located in the highlands west of the town of Turrialba and this is what most government official will tell everybody.
The railroald was (and still is, although today it is managed by a local private organization mostly conformed by former railroad workers) a government-owned one and in reality it went bancruptcy because of extensive bureaucratic management (up to 3000 employees, mostly appointed politically over the time). The railroad was offially shut down in 1995. But INCOFER (Costa Rican Railroad Institute)has changed a lot from those days. The institution has jumped the bureaucratic tracks along which it limped into decline. By the late 1980s, it was draining millions from government coffers that sustained it (about $7.5 millons annualy just to pay for its employee’s salaries). This sounds so contradictory because in early 1950’s just the Pacific Electric Railroad branch generated about 25% of all government income!. Today, INCOFER’s 50 remaining workers maintain the 400 kilometers of track, locomotives, cars and buildings as best they can on a yearly budget of around ¢700 million ($2.5 million). And they have it very clear in their minds: if the railroad doesn’t make money, it won’t survive.
So far the system is partially running, one section in the Atlantic hauling mainly bananas for the Standard Fruit Co. from local plantations inland to the port of Limon, and in the Pacific slope from the port of Caldera to the country’s capital (San Jose) hauling iron coils, metal rods, gravel, and other cargo. Both sections run on diesel engines. In both electrified sections, the Pacific branch (San Jose-Alajuela-Caldera-Puntarenas and the Atlantic section Rio Jimenez-Siquirres (built in the 1980’s by a Canadian company) most copper wiring was taken down and stored because after closing the railroad system some people began taking the copper wiring down (robbery it) to sale it in th