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Panama Railway
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The Panama Railway or Panama Rail Road is a railway line that links the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean across Panama in Central America. As of 2008 it is jointly owned by the Kansas City Southern Railway and Panama Holdings, LLC. The route stretches across the Isthmus of Panama from Aspinwall (now called Colón) to Panama City (by way of Gatun, Bujio, Barbacoas, Matachin, and Summit). Referred to as the inter-oceanic railroad when opened in 1855, it was later described as representing the world's first "transcontinental" railroad.
The infrastructure of this still functioning railroad (now called the Panama Canal Railway Company) was of vital importance for construction of the Panama Canal over a parallel route half a century later.
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Encyclopedia
The Panama Railway or Panama Rail Road is a railway line that links the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean across Panama in Central America. As of 2008 it is jointly owned by the Kansas City Southern Railway and Panama Holdings, LLC. The route stretches across the Isthmus of Panama from Aspinwall (now called Colón) to Panama City (by way of Gatun, Bujio, Barbacoas, Matachin, and Summit). Referred to as the inter-oceanic railroad when opened in 1855, it was later described as representing the world's first "transcontinental" railroad.
The infrastructure of this still functioning railroad (now called the Panama Canal Railway Company) was of vital importance for construction of the Panama Canal over a parallel route half a century later. The principal incentive for the building of the rail line was the vast increase in traffic to California owing to the 1849 California Gold Rush. Construction on the Panama Railroad began in 1850 and the first revenue train ran over the full length on January 28, 1855.
History
While the Camino Real, and later the Las Cruces trail, served communication across the isthmus for over three centuries, by the 19th century it was becoming clear that a cheaper, safer and faster alternative was required. Given the difficulty of constructing a canal with the available technology, a railway seemed the ideal solution.
President Bolívar of Colombia commissioned a study into the possibility of building a railway from Chagres (on the Chagres River) to the town of Panama City; this study was carried out between 1827 and 1829 (just as railroads were being invented). The report stated that such a railway might be possible. However, the idea was shelved.
In 1836, President Andrew Jackson of the United States commissioned a study of proposed routes for interoceanic communication, in order to protect the interests of Americans travelling between the oceans and living in the Oregon Country. This resulted in the United States acquiring a franchise for a trans-Isthmian railroad; however, the scheme was a victim of the business panic of 1837, and came to nothing.
In 1838 a French company was given a concession for the construction of a road, rail or canal route across the isthmus. An initial engineering study recommended a sea level canal from Limón Bay to the bay of Boca del Monte, twelve miles (19 km) west of Panama; but the scheme again collapsed for lack of the several $100,000,000 in funding needed.
Following the United States acquisition of Upper California and the Oregon Territory in 1846, and the prospective movement of many more settlers to the west coast, the United States once again turned its attention to securing a safe, reliable and speedy link between the oceans. Congress in 1847 therefore authorized subsidies for the running of two lines of mail and passenger steamships, one from New York, Havana, Cuba and New Orleans, Louisiana to the Chagres River Panama ($300,000 subsidy), and the other with three steamships from Panama City, Panama to California and Oregon ($200,000 subsidy).
In 1847, the actual transit across the isthmus was by native dugout boats (later modified lifeboats were used) up and down the often wild and dangerous Charges River and then onto old Spanish trails, which had fallen into disrepair after almost 50+ years of little or no maintenance and up to 3 meters of rain in the roughly April to December rainy season. A transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific would usually take four or eight days by dugout and mule back.
William H. Aspinwall, the man who had taken up the building and operating of the Pacific mail steamships, instigated a scheme to construct a railway across the isthmus; he and his partners created a company, the Panama Railroad Company, raised $1,000,000 from the sale of stock, and began engineering and route studies. Their venture was singularly well-timed, as the discovery of gold in California in January 1848 created a rush of emigrants wishing to cross the isthmus and go on to California. The first steamship he had built was the ship California and when it sailed around Cape Horn South America it was the first steamship on the west coast of North America. When it stopped at Panama City it was besieged by desperate gold seekers. Eventually it managed to leave with almost 400 passengers and entered San Francisco Bay on February 28, 1849. There most of its crew deserted and it was stranded for about four months.
Constructing the Railroad
In May 1850, the first sod was turned on the railroad construction; 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. The swamps were apparently endlessly deep often requiring hundreds of feet of gravel (30+ m) backfill to secure a roadbed. The only power equipment they had was the railroad; the rest of the work had to be done by hand and mule cart. Cholera, Yellow fever and malaria took a deadly toll, and despite the continual importation of large numbers of new workers, there were times when the work stalled for simple lack of alive and semi-fit workers. All supplies and nearly all food stuffs had to be imported from the United States greatly adding to the cost of construction.
The project's fortunes turned in November 1851, when two large steamships with about 1000 passengers were forced to shelter in Limón Bay, Panama due to a hurricane in the Caribbean. Since the railroad's docks had been completed by this time, and rail had been laid up to the town of Gatún on the Charges River, it was possible to unload the ships' cargoes of emigrants and their luggage and transport them by rail — using flat cars — for at least the first part of their journey up the Charges River. Desperate to get across the Isthmus, the gold seekers paid $0.50 per mile and $3.00 per 100 lb of luggage to be hauled to the end of the track. This infusion of money saved the company and made it an on going money maker. The directors of the company immediately ordered passenger cars, and the railway began operation with initially of track still to be laid. Each year they added more and more track. This greatly boosted the value of the company's stock, which enabled it to sell more stock and finance the remainder of the project which took over $8,000,000 dollars and from 5,000 to 10,000 lives.
By July 1852 they had finished of track and reached the Chagres River where a massive bridge had to be built. The first wooden bridge they built failed when the Charges river rose over in a day and washed it away. They then started work on a much higher 300 foot long massive iron bridge which took over a year to finish. In all over 170 more bridges and culverts had to be built.
The crest of the continental divide, at Culebra, was finally reached from the Atlantic side in January 1855, thirty-seven miles (60 km) of track having been laid from Colón (then call Aspinwall). A second team, working under less harsh conditions with railroad supplies, cars and steam engines brought around Cape Horn, completed their eleven-mile (18 km) track from Panamá City to the summit on the Pacific side of the Isthmus at a rainy midnight on January 27, 1855. The next day the first locomotive with passenger cars passed from sea to sea. The massive project was done!
Upon completion the road stretched 47 miles, 3,020 feet (76 km) with a maximum grade of sixty feet to the mile (11.4 m/km or 1.14%). The summit grade, located from the Atlantic and from the Pacific, was above the assumed grade at the Atlantic terminus and above that at the Pacific, being above the mean tide of the Atlantic Ocean and the summit ridge above the same level.
They now had the job of making things permanent and up grading the railroad. Hastily erected Wooden bridges that quickly decayed in the tropical heat and rain had to be replaced with Iron bridges. Wooden trestles had to be converted to gravel embankments. The original ties only lasted about a year and they had to be replaced with lignum vitae ties, a wood so hard that they had to drill the ties before nailing the spikes.
Financing
The railway cost some $8 million USD to build (eight times the initial estimate in 1850), and presented considerable engineering challenges, going over mountains and through swamps. Over 300 bridges and culverts needed to be built along the route.
It was largely built and financed by private companies from the United States. Among key individuals in building the railway were William H. Aspinwall, David Hoadley, George Muirson Totten, and John Lloyd Stephens. The railroad was built and originally owned by a publicly traded corporation based in New York City, the Panama Rail Road Company, which was chartered by the State of New York on April 7, 1849, and the stock in which would eventually become some of the most highly valued of the era. The company bought exclusive rights from the government of Colombia (then known as Republic of New Granada of which Panama was a part) to build the railroad across the isthmus.
The railway carried significant traffic even while it was under construction, with traffic carried by canoe and mules over the unfinished sections. This had not been originally intended, but people crossing the isthmus to California were eager to use such track as had been laid. When only 7 miles (10 km) of track had been completed the railway was doing a brisk business, charging $0.50/mile per person for the train ride--increasing to $25/person when the line was finally completed. By the time the line was officially completed and the first revenue train ran over the full length of its grade on January 28, 1855, more than one-third of its eight million dollar cost had already been paid for from fares and freight tariffs.
The fare for first class passage was set at $25.00/ one way--one of the highest rates in existence and despite very expensive on-going maintenance and up grades it made the railroad one of the most profitable in the world. Engineering and medical difficulties made the Panama Railway the most expensive railway (per unit length of track) built at the time.
Death toll
It is estimated that from 5,000 to 10,000 people may have died in construction of the railroad, though the Panama Railway company kept no official count and the total may be higher or lower. Cholera, malaria and yellow fever killed thousands of workers. These railroad workers were from the United States, Europe, Colombia, China, the Caribbean islands, and also included some African slaves. Many of these workers had come to Panama to seek their fortune, and had arrived with little or no identification. Many died with no known next of kin, nor permanent address, nor even a last name.
Cadaver trade
As disease—spread mainly by the mosquitoes ( a fact then unknown) that thrived in Panama's swampy conditions—and exhaustion took their toll on the workers. Because it was not known that mosquitoes were spreading the disease, no attempts were made to eliminate the mosquitoes or prevent them from biting the workers--that would be the great breakthrough found by Carlos Finlay, Walter Reed forty years in the future. The disposal of unidentifiable bodies was a boon to mostly paid for the medical facilities. Medical schools and teaching hospitals needed cadavers to train budding physicians, and paid handsomely for anonymous bodies pickled in barrels shipped up from the tropics. The Panama Railroad Company itself sold the corpses abroad, and the income generated was sufficient to maintain the Company's own hospital. A journalist reported sighting the chief doctor at the Panama Railroad Company's hospital conscientiously bleaching skeletons of dead workers, in hopes of compiling a skeletal museum of all the known races working on the railroad.
Completion
Upon completion, the 48 mile (77 km) long railway was proclaimed an engineering marvel of the era. The line was eventually built as double track.
The Atlantic terminal is in Colón (aka Aspinwall); the Pacific in Panama City.
Until the opening of the Panama Canal, it carried the heaviest volume of freight per unit length of any railroad in the world. The existence of the railway was one of the keys 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. In 1904 the United States government purchased the railway from the French canal company. At the time railway assets included some 75 miles (120 km) of track, 35 locomotives, 30 passenger cars, and 900 freight cars.
Much of this equipment was worn out or obsolete and had to be scrapped.
The construction and opening of the Panama Canal
The railroad starting in 1904 had to be massively upgraded with heavy duty rail to accommodate all the new rolling stock, steam engines and steam shovels brought in from the United States and elsewhere. The new railroad closely paralleled the canal where it could. In many places the new Lake Gatun flooded over the original rail line and a new rail line had to be raised by fill above the water. Many parts of the rail route had to be moved during the building of the canal, and considerable additions were made to the rail system.
The railway greatly assisted in the building of the canal. Besides all the massive tons of men, equipment and supplies the railroad hauled around it did much more. Essentially all of the tens of millions of cubic yards of material from the required canal cuts were loaded by steam shovel onto rail cars and hauled out by steam engine. Techniques were developed to pick up large sections of track by steam powered cranes and relocate them without rebuilding them. This allowed the track to precede the railroad mounted steam shovels where ever they needed to go. Massive scrapers were developed to scrape the dirt off the dirt cars where it was being unloaded allowing them to be unloaded rapidly. The railroads and the steam shovel were the two main pieces of power equipment used to construct the canal. New steam shovel technology, not available in 1850, allowed massive cuts and fills on the new railroad that were many times larger than those done in the original construction. The rebuilt, much improved and often rerouted Panama Railway continued along side the new canal and across Gatun Lake. It was completed in 1912 at a cost of $9,000,000--$1,000,000 more than the original.
Post Panama Canal
in PCRC livery in Colón June 2008]]
After World War II few additional improvements were made to the Panama Railway, and it declined after the US government handed over control to the government of Panama in 1979. On 19 June 1998 the government of Panama turned over control to the private Panama Canal Railway Company ("PCRC"), a joint venture between the Kansas City Southern Railroad and privately held Lanigan Holdings, LLC. In 2000 and 2001 a large project upgraded the railway to handle large shipping containers, to complement the Panama Canal in cargo transport. The line is now single track with some strategically placed sections of double track. Motive power as of October 2006 includes 10 ex-Amtrak F40PHs and 1 GP10. Rolling stock is notable for a 1938 dome car.
Gauge
The Panama Railway was originally gauge. The gauge was changed only in 2000 to so as to use standard gauge equipment. The original gauge was chosen under the influence of the pre-conversion southern United States railway companies. The northern railroads converted in May 1886 after the US Civil War.
See also
External links
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