Costa Rica

[Old Yard Dog]

On a recent cruise, the missus and me booked an excursion called "Costa Rica by Rail & Canal" when we were berthed in Puerto Limon. Unfortunately the train bit was cancelled due to flooding of the line and we never even got to the station. I think this clip is the line we were intended to do.

Does anybody know anything more about this tourist train which apparently runs on a line formerly used for the transportation of bananas? For example - how long is the line and where does it run to and from? And how often are trains cancelled? It seems rather ironic that a railway in a rain forest would be unable to cope with rain.

 

[Adlington]

the missus and me booked an excursion called "Costa Rica by Rail & Canal" when we were berthed in Puerto Limon. Unfortunately the train bit was cancelled due to flooding of the line

... but the canal bit got extended, didn't it?

 

[dutchflyer]

CR once had 2 lines from its capital San Jose, that sits in the middle higher up, to both the pacific and atlantic/caribbean oceans, mostly for goods (i.e. bananas mostly for export) but also offering a once/day passenger train. Roads were bad to nonexistent at those times.
Around the capital there still are peak-hour commuter workings, that seem/are reported to be well used, with ex-US stock. A report with foto's was some 3-4 monthes ago on the German DSO forum. Somehow I recall they even intend to upgrade them-electrify or light rail or whatever.
The section you refer too has this tourist-only thing remaining. You likely are unaware of how heavy real tropical monsoon rains can be and how they can wash away the ballast/trackbed, (or whole mountainsides, or houses, etc.) in a few mins-a fairly weak point of most railways anyway. My guess is that that happened before. It then takes weeks to re-install it.

 

[Calthrop]

Paul Theroux's book The Old Patagonian Express, recounting his journey in the late 1970s from the north-eastern United States to Patagonia -- travelling by train where possible -- includes a section on his travelling on Costa Rica's rail lines, which then still had their passenger services throughout. I fear that the only thing about this part of the book which I now remember, concerns his run from San Jose to the Caribbean coast; with his telling of an intensely annoying fellow-passenger -- a fellow-"Anglo" -- who spouted all the way, a non-stop running commentary about (usually very banal, obvious, and unremarkable) things seen from the train: "There's a village... there are some cows... there's a pipeline mounted up on trestles, to convey something or other..."

 

[theageofthetra]

There is also of course the wonderful 'mini RHB'- on the Swiss farm.

The other use of the peak only commuter lines around San Jose seemed to be as walking tracks when no trains were running!

 

[Calthrop]

I gather that -- rather similarly -- Manila, capital of the Philippines, still has busy commuter services on the national rail system's lines in the conurbation (the once very extensive system is, outside of the capital, moribund or completely out of use). In Manila, as well as the regular service trains, numerous quasi-illegal private operators run human-propelled rail-mounted trolleys to take people along rail routes from A to B. With the city colossally crowded as it is; the "trolley guys" fulfil a definite need -- it seems that they, and the service trains, manage to co-exist -- uneasily and unsafely, but without a huge amount of bloodshed.