Crossing A Continent In 57 Minutes On The Panama Railroad
Every day after 5 p.m. thousands of cars snake from Colon, on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal, to Panama City, on the Pacific.
Many people who work in the Colon Free Trade Zone or at one of the big container terminals prefer to live in the Panamian capital. So they shuttle the 80 kilometres, on the country’s only toll road, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
People have always used the Isthmus of Panama, the narrowest part of North America, to get from one ocean to the other - first on foot, then on horseback and with horse-drawn carriages. A railway line was completed in 1855, allowing the transit of bulkier goods from ships on one side to ships on the other.
Much of the line, the original Panama Railroad, is now underwater. The big seafaring ships sail over it as they proceed through the Panama Canal and Lake Gatun, which was created by damming the Chagres River.
The 19th century headquarters of the Panama Railroad, which directed interoceanic rail traffic across the Isthmus of Panama (then governed by Bolivia), were in a building that today is the Hotel Washington. The fastest and most convenient route linking San Francisco and New York in those days was via Panama.
The Panama Railroad proved so successful that at one time it was the highest-priced stock on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1913, a year before the Panama Canal began operations, it transported nearly 3 million passengers and more than 2 million tons of freight. Without the railway and its transport capacity the canal could never have been built.
Panama was part of Colombia prior to the 1903 uprising which was staged with more than a little American backing and assistance. David McCulloch’s “The Path Between The Seas” provides a pretty good background to the whole sordid affair.
About two or three years ago, TRAINS had an excellent story on this line, which is owned by the KCS, Mike Haggerty and Co., and has passenger service with the equipment painted like the Flying Crow and (what was the name of the other KCS streamliner?). Apparently, the passenger service is excellent and well used by commuters.
The Southern Belle… The paint scheme of yellow, red and black, is being considered as a new paint graphic for the upcoming order from EMD for the KCSdeMexico locomotives…according to the latest issue of TRAINS.
The question asked was why do people working in Colon live in Panama City and commute daily. My wife and I had to delay our Western Caribbean cruise as a delay in getting our passports. (21,000 Canadians applying for passports daily) I looked up in a tour book about the city of Colon & it states that anyone on a cruise was cautioned about leaving the cruise port 'cause crime was rampant in Colon and police are conspicous account of their absence. Pickpockets are everywhere, streets are sewers. Many houses are yellow from people emptying their pee-pots from their windows. While Panama City is a progressive clean city, The State Gov’t have left Colon in a sad state of neglect to say the least.
Would it make any economic sense to tie the Panama Railroad to the North American system?
I have read geography would make this a tough engineering project. The national economies of Central America are not the little tigers of Asia. My guess is port transfer traffic to and from North America would be the impetus.