Costa Rica Blogs - Newsfeeds

by Rod Hughes
It’s noisy, a bit bumpy and certainly not up-to-date luxury service, but the inter-urban passenger service between the western San Jose suburb of Pavas and Montes de Oca (San Pedro) on the east side is a big hit.
Time was, not too many years ago, when the only trains running in the country were those carrying bananas in the Caribbean province of Limon. The rest of INCOFER (the Costa Rican railway system) had been shut down by presidential decree as a money-losing proposition. But that has turned around in a big way—in May INCOFER sold 70,000 tickets, up an incredible 1,166% over the last three months in 2005, when the service was initiated, tentatively and with some trepidation on the part of executives.
Today, 13 trains ply the route, eight of them all the way from Pavas and the other five between the old Pacific railway station the south of the capital to Universiad Latin in San Pedro. Many of the passengers are students on their way to universities, public and private, on the east side.
And the price is right for students’ pocketbooks—¢300, not even 50 U.S. cents.
At peak hours, passengers cram the cars to the steps and INCOFER is contemplating adding another train from Pavas at 5:05 (where 100 to 125 people have been observed awaiting the train) to the Pacific station, a 17-minute ride. (A bullet train, it isn’t.)
But this service is not the only route that is meeting success. Inspectors have recently given a clean bill of safety to the rail line between Montes de Oca and Atenas to the northwest of the capital. This is a favorite weekend excursion and, again, it is not a French or Japanese-style bullet train. In fact, it is certified as safe only up to 25 kilometers per hour, something like 20 mph.
Inspecting engineers warn that if INCOFER locomotive drivers want to go up to 40 kilometers per hour, railroad had better replace 3,093 deteriorated ties. And if they want to reach that speed between Pavas and Atenas, they must replace 5,151 ties. But Minister of Transport Karla González says work has already been started doing just that—although no increase in speed is contemplated.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Costa Rica News, Business and Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.