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History of the Panama Canal Railway

Following the acquisition of California in the 1848 Mexican War, and the increasing movement of settlers to the west coast, the United States congress authorized the running of two lines of mail ships, one from New York to Chagres on the Caribbean Coast of Panama and the other from Oregon and California to Panama City.

People and cargo crossed the isthmus by way of the same trails used for three hundred years, the Camino Real and the Las Cruses. William H. Aspinwall, the man who operated the Pacific mail ships and his partners created a company, raised $1,000,000 from the sale of stock, and began construction of a railroad in 1850. Their timing was excellent as the California Gold Rush brought many looking for a shorter route to California than around South America.

The building of the Panama Canal Railway, called the Panama Railway at the time, was difficult with many workers dying from disease and exhaustion. The entire project took five years and nearly ran out of money.

Construction difficulties are mentioned in the Panama Canal Railway web site, "Rails were laid on pine crossties, which disintegrated quickly in the damp tropical heat. As a remedy, ties of lignum vitae were imported from Cartagena, New Grenada. The wood was so dense and hard that holes had to be drilled before spikes could be driven."

Wikipedia reports that "In May 1850, the first sod was turned on the project; but very quickly, the difficulty of the scheme became apparent. The heat was stifling, and deluges of rain for almost half the year required the workers to operate in water up to four feet deep. Yellow fever and malaria took a deadly toll, and despite the continual importation of large numbers of workers, there were times when the work stalled for simple lack of fit workers."

Estimates of deaths from Malaria and Yellow fever range as high as 12,000.

When it was finished the Panama Canal Railway was the first intercontinental railway and carried for a time more freight per mile than any other in the Americas.

Building the Panama Canal

The Panama Canal Railway was an integral part of construction the Panama Canal as it greatly facilitated moving men and material along the construction route. However, the Panama Canal Railway brought about its own demise. Freight traffic virtually disappeared once the canal went into operation and by the 1940's was an insignificant part of cross-isthmus traffic.

The New Panama Canal Railway

In 1997 the Panamanian government chose to privatize many government run facilities. The Panama Canal Railway was included in this process.

The current Panama Canal Railway is a joint venture of the Kansas City Southern and the material handling company, MI-Jack Products. The Kansas City Southern is the so-called NAFTA railway because of its links from Canada into Mexico. MI-Jack Products is the world leader in manufacture and supply of container and trailer handling equipment and runs freight terminals in the United States and Mexico.

In the 1998 the joint venture of Kansas City Southern and MI-Jack Products invested $80 million to improve the Panama Canal Railway. They were awarded a fifty year concession to operate the railroad in return for this investment.

Today the Panama Canal railway is an integral part of operations for the Panama Canal. Tied into port facilities on both ends of the canal materials that are changing vessels can be moved cross isthmus by rail for reloading on the other ocean. In addition the new Panama Canal railway provides passenger service including taking cruise ship passengers back to their point of departure.

History

History - Part 2