Panama Canal Railway
The Panama Canal Railway Company (reporting mark PCRC) is a railway line that links the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean across Panama in Central America. It is jointly owned by Kansas City Southern and Mi-Jack Products. The route stretches 47.6 miles (76.6 km) across the Isthmus of Panama from Aspinwall (now called Colón) to Panama City (by way of Gatun lake, Bujio, Barbacoas, Matachin, and Summit).
The infrastructure of this still-functioning railroad (formerly the Panama Railway or Panama Rail Road) 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. Referred to as being an inter-oceanic railroad when it opened, it was later also described by some as representing a "transcontinental" railroad despite only transversing the narrow isthmus connecting the North and South American continents.
Read more about Panama Canal Railway: History of Earlier Isthmus Crossings and Plans, Rebuild 1904–1912 For The Panama Canal, 2001 Reconstruction
Famous quotes containing the words canal and/or railway:
“My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)