Costa Rica and Panama may be nearing a free trade agreement between the two countries as talks are scheduled to begin again April 9, reports Agence France Presse. Talks resumed last year after a lapse of a decade due to disagreements over agricultural exports and certain services.

“Costa Rica is our principal market in the region,” declared Panama’s Trade Minister Alejandro Ferrer. Costa Rica is the principal reexport market for the Colon Tax Free Zone with more than $315 million in trade last year.

Since 1973, the two nations have had a limited trade agreement.

Remember the signs on U.S. highways a generation ago? “Next time, take the train.”

Residents of Heredia and San Jose people with business in that town may be able to do just that in a few years and get between the two main terminals in just 19 minutes, says a pre-feasibility study by the Ministry of Public Works reported in today’s La Nacion, Costa Rica’s leading daily.

This predicted travel time is far faster than present train service, far more rapid than by bus or even private car due to today’s traffic congestion. The secret is a new type of smaller electric train especially adapted to fast urban travel.

This would mean diverting the current obsolete trains to other uses or junking them completely, plus a nearly new infrastructure. The cost would be $136 million and the first stage could be ready by 2010–if Congress approves the expenditure.

The Minister of Public Works, Karla Gonzalez, confirms that not only she is in favor of the drastic change but President Oscar Arias is as well. “Now is the time to think about quality public transport,” said Gonzalez, “The streets are not sufficient for the number cars and the solution isn’t to widen them.”

The infrastructure would include 13 stations, at least three of which would have parking lots for the passengers’ cars and bus transfer service. The plan contemplates that Heredia buses would not come all the way into San Jose, thus helping to alleviate traffic congestion in the capital.

Under the plan, the government would invest $88 million and the remaining $48 million would be paid by a concessionaire in charge of running the train. Two French firms have expressed interest, one a specialist in building ultramodern trains and the other in financing.

The explosion in the number of cars since the 1970s never contemplated by planners coincided with the dwindling away of the train system, a victim of the rising equipment and labor costs and expensive-to-operate obsolete equipment.

The railway was finally closed for more than a decade and only revived a few years ago for regular weekday service between Heredia and San Jose and for occasional excursions. The train to Limon was discontinued even earlier than the Pacific branch, putting an end to one of the most unique and charming tourist attractions in the country, the “Jungle Train.”