Talk:Panama Canal Railway

Should be renamed Panama Railroad

The terms railroad and railway are synonims, the former used in the United States, the latter in Britain. The Panama Railroad was American-built. Its builders were not likely to use the term railway. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scott Adler (talk • contribs) 06:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

(I don't know who that was; it wasn't signed)

Agreed. In point of fact the official name of the entity during the American tenure in Panama was indeed "Panama Railroad." HiramShadraski 18:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I've just had a look and there appears to have been a redirect/alias back in December 2003—which seems to have served quite well in that time. The name of the current operating company/organisation uses Railway, so I'm be tempted to leave the article as is—the railway is not controlled by the United States anymore, so to force a rename with US-nomenclature could potentially be considered politically insensitive to local naming practice. —Sladen (talk) 14:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Panama Railroad as a "Transcontinental" Railroad

The Panama Railroad as used in "transcontinental" travel between New York and San Francisco before 1869 constituted only a very small portion (between Aspinwall and Panama City) of the entire ticketed passage which was offered by the North American Steamship Company prior to the completion of the Pacific Railroad with the vast majority of the trip being made over water by steamer. When opened on January 28, 1855, the railroad was actually referred to as the "Inter-Oceanic" railroad. Making the "claim" that a line just 48 miles long constitutes a "transcontinental" railroad does not comport with how the term is customarily used or understood. (One of the references that you cite was in fact written by me and uses the term "claim" to indicate that this view is hardly an absolute.) Using this logic, a railroad running from Miami, FL, on the Atlantic Ocean to Tampa, FL, on the Gulf of Mexico could also be described as a "transcontinental" railroad as well which would, I think, be quite misleading. I have been studying and writing extensively and professionally about this subject for more than ten years, have read (and own original copies of) a great many of the primary source materials (images of some which I have now posted in the article), and have given this topic a great deal of study and thought. I restructured the introduction to this article very carefully to accurately reflect what is contained in those materials. (Centpacrr (talk) 02:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC))

Greetings, thank you for your work on the article. I, myself, did not add the terminology "transcontinental"; having found references for it, it seems rude to the original contributor to dispute it. I added four references (the first page of WP:GHITS from Google). Perhaps the opening paragraph can be switched to using "inter-oceanic" and a discussion can be added further down the article regarding "transcontinental" and the later related railways/routes performing a similar rôle (with a {{main|Transcontinental railroad}}).

I'm currently trying to work out if I can phrase "Although its grade ..." in a different manner; to me, the "although ... only" imparts a slightly derogatory meaning—48miles was a large achievement when built and is perhaps equivlant to something like the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (108km) built recently. Do you have any feeling on a good alternative for "grade"; it is a technical term and maybe unfamiliar to those reading the opening-line, perhaps "route" or "length" would be more appropriate. Outside of US terminology grade_(slope), refers to vertical climb/angle, not distance! Once again, thank you for your edits to bring up the quality of the article. —Sladen (talk) 10:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I used the expression "Although its grade....only 48 miles.." not as a slight as to the difficulty of building the road (which was very considerable), but to relate it to the length of the New York to San Francisco transcontinental route which is more than fifty times longer. Also the term "grade" has two meanings as it relates to railroads. In addition to the slope of the line, it also refers to the prepared "graded" roadbed, bridges, trestles, tunnels, and other infrastructure as a whole on which the tracks are laid. (Centpacrr (talk) 13:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC))

I've been pondering various "only ..." type wordings over in my mind. I think making a comparision to project that have come before (earlier in history) is valid, but less so when making comparisons to projects that haven't happened yet (in history). So, I think noting that "...the FTR is 1800 miles (20× the length) of the earlier/previous XYZ..." is a valid comparison to make, on the FTR article;

...but I'm unsure if it's right to pass judgement over an earlier engineers' choice to take a different/shorter route earlier in history. I'll try to mull it over a bit more, but I think that it may be useful to add a sub-heading/discussion further down the article (—for completeness, I myself don't have much of a preference). —Sladen (talk) 13:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The reference is to the timing of the claim that the Panama Railroad was a transcontinental railroad which came long after it was built and was made in relation to the FTR from New York to San Francisco. As noted in the 1855 clipping reporting its opening, the Panama Railroad was referred to at the time as the "Inter-Oceanic Railroad" so the FTR comparison made later is chronologically appropriate. (Centpacrr (talk) 14:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC))

Yup, happy with that. Just for clarity:

1. I'm not interested (concerned) about Inter-/trans-/foo-/claimed/anything/naming.
2. I am interested that the railway is not degraded in its significance of the period.

(I do appreciate what came later was bigger-better-longer, but the Panama Railway was the achivement of that time).

So I'm trying to seek to avoid wordings in the style of "...only 50 miles [..] compared to railways which [..] would be built 10-20years later...", (in the introduction). —Sladen (talk) 14:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Sladen: Given the large amounts of historical records that qualify the Panama Railroad as the first transcontinental railroad, please provide a reference that shows that indeed the classification of Inter-oceanic was the original and only descriptor of the Panama Railroad and that the attribute Transcontinental was not used at all at the same time. Please keep in mind that the US Transcontinental railroad is both Transcontinental and Inter-oceanic. I agree that given the landmass it traverses the railroad should qualify as an inter-oceanic railroad but I also understand that my personal opinion should not interfere with historical records. Following this line of thought, the attribute "Transconitnental" is also technically correct because (as defined in the wikipedia article) the Panama Railroad:

1. "crosses a continental land mass": as narrow as it may be, there was no way around Panama at that time, except for sailing directly from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Magellan to get to the other side in order to avoid crossing the continent by land. Arguing that crossing Panama was not crossing a continental landmass at that time, would imply that Panama was not part of either South or North America (or of America as a continent or of any continent for that matter), which would also inevitably lead to the conclusion that Panama must an Island, which is not.
2. "has termini at different oceans": unlike the railroad in Florida, which has ends in the same ocean, the Panama Railroad does have ends in the Atlantic and in the Pacific Oceans.

--WikiDrive (talk) 16:23, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

• Comments: 1)The railroads in Panama and the US West were both of great historic importance, great engineering achievements, and huge tasks for which many people died. The US rairoad continues to be the one of the most famous moments in US history; one in Panama (although to a large part a US achievement) in contrast seems comparatively forgotten other than by railway historians. Both are historically important. One might make an arguement that one is more important than the other, but that should come well after the acknowledgement of the importance of both. 2)That one is earlier and one is longer are respectively details of chronology and geography. 3)When did the word "Transcontiental" first appear in the English language? In what context? Are there various conflicting defintions of what it means? Curious, -- Infrogmation (talk) 23:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• The seminal period book on the subject of the Panama Railroad is "Illustrated History of the Panama Railroad" by Fessenden N. Otis, MD published by Harper & Brothers in 1861. (The author had been a ship's surgeon for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company from 1853-59.) At no place in this work is the railroad described as being a "transcontinental" line. (The word "continent" only appears once in the 268 page book (on page 262) referring to the location of ticket offices in Europe, while the word "transcontinental" does not appear in the book anywhere at all.) On the first page of the book's main text (page 15), however, Dr. Otis describes the purpose for which the road was built across the Isthmus of Panama was to permit ...free interoceanic communication at this point." The line was also described in the contemporary press when it opened in 1855 as being an "inter-oceanic" railroad such as in a story entitled "A Great Enterprise" published in The Portland (Maine) Transcript on February 17, 1855 ("That great enterprise, the inter-oceanic or Panama Railroad across the Isthmus, is completed, and the rough Atlantic is now wedded, with an iron band, to the fair Pacific.") as opposed to a "transcontinental" one. Centpacrr (talk) 01:31, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

"U" rail aka "Bridge" rail

Example of the original construction 53 lb (24 kg) inverted "U" rail aka "Bridge" rail, "screw" spike, and lignum-vitae hardwood tie used to build the Panama Railroad from 1851 to 1855. (The Cooper Collections)

See Rail tracks.

Tabletop (talk) 08:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

ownership, operating leases, and dates of transfer

According to the second sentence in the lead of this article:

As of 2008 it is jointly owned by the Kansas City Southern Railway and Panama Holdings, LLC.

and then lower down in the "Post Panama Canal" section we find:

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.

yet according to the company's web page at [1] we find that:

On February 17, 1998, The Panama Canal Railway Company, a joint venture between Kansas City Southern, a U.S. Class I Railroad, and Mi-Jack Products, North America’s leading independent intermodal terminal operator, was awarded a 50-year concession to rebuild and operate the line.

The three statements do not seem to agree with each other. Have the same two companies run CPRC continously since 1998? What became of Panama Holdings LLC? Is Mi-Jack Products still helping to operate the CPRC? Is Lanigan Holdings LLC still helping to operate the CPRC? Should both sentences in this wikipedia article be altered to reflect what the company's website states? 67.86.73.252 (talk) 01:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Construction Gauge

What was gauge of the extensive construction railways for the Panama Canal? Tabletop (talk) 11:49, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Ownership by War Department completely neglected

Once the United States settled into the canal's construction and after failure of a commission system the company and canal construction became entirely efforts of the United States Department of War which had close oversight of the Zone through WW II. This aspect is nearly completely unaddressed in the text. I've added one note and a reference with the most succinct statement of this fact, but there are multiple sources detailing issues and how the company operated during this period. Palmeira (talk) 11:08, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Shipping line and ships almost totally neglected

A significant subsidiary of the railroad was the associated shipping line, Panama Railroad Steamship Line, that operated a number of notable ships both in support of the canal (personnel and freight) and as a passenger line. A number of notable ships (SS Ulysses (1914), SS Ancon (1901), USS Ancon (AGC-4), SS Panama (1939) link to the article yet only yield a rail/rolling stock centric content without context to the shipping operations. 71.178.17.34 (talk) 11:17, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Electrification?

The section on an alleged electrification project seems to be completely made up, just like the weirdly specific and nonsensical “future rolling stock” section. No such project seems to be planned, and no order or ordering intention has been placed or publicized for the 5 locomotives or 7 train sets (which does not even make any sense when buying only 5 locomotives).200.108.63.214 (talk) 18:29, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree, this lacks reliable sources, so I've removed it. The Mirror Cracked (talk) 19:22, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Split proposal

@Mike Peel: Could you elaborate on the rationale behind your proposed split? I could see the merit in splitting between the historic railroad and the post 2001 operation, is that what you are proposing? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:11, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

@Trainsandotherthings: I was meaning splitting the '1855 Panama Railroad' section into a separate article, since the route substantially changed in 1904. Commons has two separate categories for these. See commons:Commons:Categories for discussion/2021/11/Category:Panama Railroad for motivation: I was confused by this there, and the multiple Commons categories in this article, and would like to see this more clearly described here (but don't know enough about the topic to do so myself). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:48, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: That's an excellent point. I'm not 100% sold on splitting out the article, but you're absolutely right there should be a much clearer description and distinction between the railroad before the canal, and after the canal was built. Length wise, we are at around 5,500 words, which isn't terrible, but long enough that a split is certainly possible. The lead doesn't even mention the rebuild at all! I'll look into this today. Thank you for bringing this up, it's clearly a long standing issue. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:56, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

• Support. This article began as an article on the historic Panama Railway of the 1850s, and over the years was renamed; it looks like a bit over half the article is still about the railroad that long predated the Panama Canal. -- Infrogmation (talk) 19:56, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The article itself does not even give a hint. Track = Corporation. -DePiep (talk) 20:00, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose I've had some time to think about it, and I do not support a split. Though there were different iterations of the railway, they all served a similar purpose, traveled roughly the same route, and there's no overlap between different iterations. It makes the most sense to cover them all here, to avoid duplication and provide better context. This article is not long enough that a split is necessary. Having two separate articles for different periods of the railroad's history is just a route to confusing readers. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:41, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: there are three railways that have existed at various times, two 5-foot, and one standard gauge, all on slightly different alignments—as such, it may make sense to do some splitting if there is sufficient content available. —Sladen (talk) 21:04, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose – The subjects are closely related enough that it doesn't make sense to split them unless this article grows unmanageably large. The PCRC web site says "since 1855" so they consider themselves to have a continuous history back to the original construction. GA-RT-22 (talk) 22:17, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

863783505

M 95.85.104.140 (talk) 09:36, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

There is no passenger service

I was just in Panama and poked around the train "stations" (they are just platforms) in both Panama City and Colón. There is no passenger service and it looks like there hasn't been for many months. People I asked say it was discontinued at the start of covid and never resumed. I saw no indication that there are plans to start it back up.

The web site is still up, and still has a timetable and fares listed. I have been unable to find any RS that says the service is discontinued. GA-RT-22 (talk) 13:34, 13 March 2022 (UTC)