Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

had a network of

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...

railroads.

History

Construction of the first railway in Guatemala commenced in 1878 and the first section began operation in 1880, connecting Puerto San José and Escuintla, being extended to

Guatemala City Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capital city, national capital and largest city of the Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala. It is also the Municipalities of Guatemala, municipal capital of the Guatemala Depa ...

in 1884. The line to Puerto Barrios, known originally as Northern Railroad of Guatemala was completed in 1908. The network was soon acquired by United Fruit, and in 1912 renamed the International Railways of Central America which was also known as IRCA. The railroad prospered until 1957. In 1954, United Fruit had to divest following an

antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...

suit and in 1959, a parallel

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

caused a serious competitive pressure. In 1968, the company defaulted, was taken over by the government and renamed ''Ferrocarriles de Guatemala'' which was also known as FEGUA. The condition of tracks continued to deteriorate and regular traffic was shut down in 1996.

Revival

In October 1997, a 50-year concession was given to Railroad Development Corporation (RDC) which started to rehabilitate the network. They were delayed by the need to evict squatters who built their cottages on the right-of-way during the previous years and to repair damage caused by thieves and nature. A serious blow was

Hurricane Mitch Hurricane Mitch was an extremely deadly and catastrophic Atlantic hurricane, which became the second-deadliest tropical cyclone in the Atlantic basin on record. Mitch caused 11,374 fatalities in Central America in 1998, including approximately ...

in 1998, which destroyed parts of the line. The first train under RDC management went from Guatemala City to El Chile cement plant on April 15, 1999, and the rest of the line to Puerto Barrios was put into operation in December of that year. From 1999 until September 2007, Ferrovías Guatemala (FVG), as a subsidiary of RDC, operated 15 engines and 200 railcars on freight trains between Guatemala City and Puerto Barrios. It transported

containers A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...

, paper and

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

s between the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

coast and the capital over a network of , but quit in September 2007.Central America going nowhere
''

Railway Gazette International ''Railway Gazette International'' is a British monthly business magazine and news website covering the railway, metro, light rail and tram industries worldwide. Available by annual subscription, the magazine is read in over 140 countries by tran ...

'' August 2007. It connected

to Puerto Barrios with short branches in Guatemala City

container terminal A container port, container terminal, or intermodal terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land v ...

and Puerto Santo Tomás. Steam charter trains ran on parts of the network in the period 1997 to 2007. Other lines previously existing in Guatemala (such as to Ciudad Tecún Umán on the border with

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, to Anguiatú in

El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...

and to Puerto San José) have not been repaired since 1996. A short cross-border link from Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas in Mexico to Ciudad Tecún Umán was rebuilt with in 2019.

Suspension of operations in 2007

In August 2006, the government of Guatemala declared a 2003 contract for the

usufruct Usufruct () is a limited real right (or ''in rem'' right) found in civil law and mixed jurisdictions that unites the two property interests of ''usus'' and ''fructus'': * ''Usus'' (''use'', as in usage of or access to) is the right to use or en ...

of rolling stock and other equipment as contrary to public interest ('' :es:Declaración de lesividad''), invalidating it. FVG believed that this was a response to its earlier request for arbitration regarding the usage of US$2 million from National Railroad Trust, designated for the development of railroads in Guatemala but used to support an overstaffed governmental oversight agency. The result of the governmental action was a decline of shipments and operational difficulties, such as inability to obtain credit or take additional revenues from the leasing of station buildings or

right of way A right of way (also right-of-way) is a specific route that people, animals, vehicles, watercraft, or utility lines travel, or the legal status that gives them the right to do so. Rights-of-way in the physical sense include controlled-access h ...

. In March 2007, RDC declared its intent to seek protection of investment through arbitration against the government of Guatemala according to Chapter 10 of CAFTA. The case was registered with ICSID on August 20, 2007, with number ARB/07/23. Due to the continuing uncertainty leading to losses, FVG decided to suspend all operations as of October 1, 2007, while continuing with legal actions against the Guatemalan government. The arbitration case was finally decided in favor of RDC and US$14.6m paid as compensation. , most of the bridges have been dismantled and sold for scrap by thieves, making a potential revival of railways in Guatemala difficult, as it would cost millions of dollars to rebuild. In August 2012, there were proposals to start some new passenger services, including a link from La Aurora airport to

Historic Network

The following table shows the main rail network and linked plantation railways (mostly

United Fruit Company The United Fruit Company (later the United Brands Company) was an American multinational corporation that traded in tropical fruit (primarily bananas) grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was ...

) at its historic extent and is based on the source work with additional original research. Details of the plantation railways are vague. An incomplete series of 1:50,000 maps are held by / published online by The University of Texas under the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) Map Collection websit

Ferrocarril de Los Altos

Outside of the IRCA network, an electric railroad ''Ferrocarril de Los Altos'' used to connect Quetzaltenango and Retalhuleu between 1930 and 1933. It was destroyed by a hurricane in 1933 and never rebuilt. The remains are on display in a dedicated museum in Quetzaltenango ().

Ferrocarril Verapaz

Another isolated railroad, ' (also known as ''Ferropazco''), used to connect Panzós and

Tucurú Tucurú is a small town and municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. The municipality population was 43,473 at the 2018 census. History Verapaz Railroad The Verapaz Railroad began on 15 January 1894 with a contract for 9 ...

Alta Verapaz Alta Verapaz () is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, and ...

Department. Its construction was authorized in 1884 and completed in 1895. Its main purpose was to transport coffee from farms (fincas) controlled mainly by Germans to the port of Panzós on Polochic River, which merged to Lago de Izabal and the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

. The company was nationalized in 1943. In 1956, the government created a national company ''Ferrocarril Verapaz y Servicios Anexos''. Operations along ''Ferrocarril Verapaz y Servicios Anexos'' stopped in 1963.

Tourist trains

Charter passenger trains with steam engines, mainly for European and U.S. tourists, were organized usually once a year by UK based Ffestiniog Travel or other operators. Traffic control used a modified Track warrant Control method. The main station in Guatemala city also serves as railroad museum.

Railway museum

The '' Museo del Ferrocarril FEGUA'' is located in the railway station at

and displays steam engines, a diesel engine, passenger and freight cars, and other memorabilia of the Ferrocarriles de Guatemala.

Proposed light rail

light rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...

system called Metro Riel is planned for Guatemala City.

Railway links with adjacent countries

– at Ciudad Tecún Umán

break of gauge With railways, a break of gauge occurs where a line of one track gauge (the distance between the rails, or between the wheels of trains designed to run on those rails) meets a line of a different gauge. Trains and railroad car, rolling stock g ...

/. (rebuilt as standard gauge in 2019 * There is no connection to

Belize Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

, but still proposed. * The former link to

– at Angulatú/San Jerónimo – is not active.

References

External links

*
Ferrovías Guatemala
– current operator of Guatemalan railroads (more links embedded inside)

– history, 17 photographs, 2 maps

with map, gradient profile and photographs

with contact addresses, photographs and links
Germans in Verapaz
article in Prensa Libre with a picture of Ferrocarril Verapaz {{Central America topic, Rail transport in 3 ft gauge railways in Guatemala