We’ve had a few threads about brdiging the Bering Straight and linking North America and Asia by rail. But what about linking North and South America by rail? Would that be feasable? Would there ever be a market for such a link?
Some of the obstacles would be:
Railroads in most of the Central American countries are narrow gauge and either badly run-down or abandoned completly.
A bridge accross the Panama Canal. My gues is this would need to be a very large bascule bridge.
The Pan-American Highway, a network of major roadways from Alaska to Argentina, actually has a 60 mile break in Panama. Not the Canal, but swamps, wetlands, and impossible conditions to build and maintain a road. If a road can’t get through, rail would be even more cost-prohibitive.
Trying to remember my College Geography lessons. I seem to remember when it was first proposed back in the 1930’s, The Pan American Convention routing was to be built as a railroad. Obviously, that idea did not get very far.
I think that the treaty for the completion of the route was signed in the last of 1936 in Buenos Aires(?) and was to study and construct a land route/highway from the United States to Tierra del Fuego.
There is still a gap at the Panama Canal ( Darien Gap) but according to information, the route has been legislated to be complete except fo the Gap in Panama which requires a ferry ride, and includes by legislation the entire US Interstate Highway system.
Tomaybe, answer Murphy Siding’s question about commerce: Produce would be one, furniture, another, clothing(?)… and then there are the obvious illegal activities that have markets in the USA. [:-^] And with the open borders we now seem to have maybe AMTRAK could sell lots of tickets, I am certain the people making the trip from Central Amaerica, would pay for seats INSIDE the trains; rather than on top of the freight cars they currently utilize for their trip.
Maybe an HSR line would be safer than on top of a mixed train
The cavalier routing of some of the little railroad tracks on that map near takes my breath away!
Part of the “5000 miles to Cuzco” section appears to pass close to the west end of the runways for the best location for an orbital port, east (and considerably above) Quito, Ecuador. Be interesting to see the helper power that would be used.
The straight transAndean links would be interesting, too, considering how a couple of them were built as standalone lines.
The map of the highway gave me a good chuckle, as I truely don’t believe the segment going to Prudhoe bay exists.
I know that there are products that could ship between the Americas by train. I’m just kind of doubting that anything that would/could ship by train over that route could be time sensitive enough to warrant paying the higher price of rails over ocean waters. It’s the same doubts that come up in the semi-annual North America to Asia thread. You can ship stuff on the train, but is there an advantage to shipping it by train?
The rail lines shown seem to be crossing over, or riding the ridge of most every major mountain range in the Americas. When I was very young, someone my parents knew died in a plane crash om Mt. Saint Elias in southeast Alaska. The crash site probably would be on the rail line drawn on the map. The bodies were never recovered, because they were something like 12 or 15 thousand feet up the mountain.
There have been several government overthrows in central and south America since this rail line was first proposed, and some of the existing lines were probably nationalized in the process.
A recent program from the U.K. called “Great Railway Journeys” outlines the trials and tribulations of the reporter trying to get to the southern tip of Patagonia by rail, only to learn that many of the rail lines have been abandoned by the government and trains no longer run on many of the existing lines.
In short, several central and south American governments have abandoned rail.
That is an interesting thought. My conclusion is that such rail service will one day come to pass, but we just aren’t quite there yet. It is strange to contemplate the range of countries to our south, all connected by land. I see those countries as having a strong relationship with the U.S., but they lag behind the U.S. in development. However, they may all soon come on line as trading partners as they become more developed. I don’t think there will be any geological impediments to a north-south railroad once the time is right in about 10-15 years.
The map of the highway gave me a good chuckle, as I truely don’t believe the segment going to Prudhoe bay exists.
I know that there are products that could ship between the Americas by train. I’m just kind of doubting that anything that would/could ship by train over that route could be time sensitive enough to warrant paying the higher price of rails over ocean waters. It’s the same doubts that come up in the semi-annual North America to Asia thread. You can ship stuff on the train, but is there an advantage to shipping it by train?
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Murphy Siding:
In fact that psrt you mentioned the Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay (Alaska) is inclusive of the what some may refer to as the " Haul Road"( built to service the Alesyka/Alaska Pipeline to the Oil Fied at Prudhoe(?).
The other fact that I found of some interest is that at some point, legislatively, The U.S. Interstate Highway net has bee incoporated by Congress intothe Pan American Highway System. The Exit for that System is at the Port of Laredo,Texas onto the Mexican section of the Pan Am Highway.
I have no idea how it(Pan-AM Hwy) runs through Mexico, and beyond the Panama Canal, but I do know that the Trucking Company,(then based in Memphis, Tn)that I worked for then, had some photos taken by an employee on vacation of our Company trailers(53’Trailers) on the South Side of the Panama Canal ( pulled by road tractors of our Mexican-based partner Carrier).
Sam- Upon a closer look of the map linked in your post, I see that they must be refering to the Dalton road from Fairbanks north to Prudhoe Bay. The lines drawn on the map show the road going southeast from Prudhoe Bay into far nortwestern Canada. Slitting hairs I suppose, but that’s like showing the 20th Century Limited running from Chicago to New York via Louisville. [:-,]
But, it did make me go learn about the Dalton Highway and Prudhoe Bay. 500 miles on gravel, 12% grades, and they run tourist busses there in the summer! Good times!
If it was all standard gauge from one end to the other, how many companies that own railroad cars would be very apprehensive to their cars ending up in countries with unstable governments who might just nationalize their railroad cars?
There is some pollitical and environmental opposition to bridging the Darien Gap at the isthmus. It acts as a natural barrier to migration of invasive species and I supose other undesirable things. I don’t concur that it is effective, but it seems to have stopped the Pan-Am Highway.
In order to have a viable direct rail connection to South America, each of the participants along the way has to be economically affordable and reasonably reliable.
Note that CG Railway runs a ‘railroad ferry’ operation between Mobile Alabama and Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. This is not some marginal[%-)] operation done with a couple of ancient carfloat barges and hired tugboats, these are oceangoing ships with rails.
This ferry operation is not to some isolated rail connection in Coatzacoalcos as Coatzacoalcos is also served directly by Mexican railroad Ferrosur.
If CGRailway can make a business out of short-hauling the western US railroads and their northern Mexican interchange partners via ‘rail ships’, it seems pretty clear to me that most South American points could be more economically served in a similar manner by ‘rail ships’ rather than a direct rail connection.
The photo Rader Sidetrack linked to is apparently the ship " Bali Sea". A rough count of the weather deck shows seven tracks and approx 56 cars. It would be interesting to know how many decks there are on the ships ( They appear to be of the similar designs(?).
As a side thought; for years, equipment into Mexico was problematic. I know that many times trucking operators have received trailers at the US side of the border, stripped of much stuff( any plywood or flooring, lights wiring and tires and rims). A previous employer, of mine, suffered so much damage on trailers in Mexico, they eatablished a terminal yard in Mexico City; the job there was to photograph each trailer and record any damages, for which our Mexican partner carrier was responsible. Our terminal at Laredo,Tx photoed the equipment going into Mexico. At any given time our trailer count in Mexico was three to five hundred trailers. I wonder if the Rail Cars going in have similar issues?
Found this tidbit on line: Bali Sea and Banda Sea . Each 595’ × 117’, 21,000 DWT roll-on/roll-off vessel has eight tracks on the top and seven on the bottom totaling about 7,000 linear feet. Adding the second deck increased capacity on each ship from 58 to 115 railcars. The ships’ average speed is 10.5 to 12 knots. - See more at: http://www.workboat.com/newsdetail.aspx?id=4294974887#sthash.7mnjzvSt.dpuf
A lot of countries would have to change their politics and governments first. KCS is learning what an unreliable partner Mexico may turn out to be, as that country’s lower legislative house has voted to force “open access” on the KCS years ahead of schedule.
