I use the term tracking here with two meanings. First, I refer to the practice of hunters everywhere seeking their quarry through the countryside, and in some cases through urban areas, by following its scat and spoor, noting subtle indications of passage and pause, until either the pursued is found, or given up for lost. The second usage is peculiar to my specific quarry, a railroad; railroads consist, most basically, of tracks (rails attached to ties.) During the month of May, 1999, I went in search of a ghost - a ghost of a railroad. My search started with wetting my boots in the Pacific Ocean, and then pursuing my quarry until I was able to walk a few steps into the Atlantic Ocean. Although I generally travel alone, on this tracking expedition I was accompanied by a friend (Ted) for most of the time. We are members of the same social club, enjoy hiking and railroads, and have traveled together before. Most of what I report here was done by both of us, but for ease of communication I usually write in the first person singular.
May 10, 1869 is the date that the first 'Rail Road from the Atlantic to the Pacific' was completed, according to most American historians, although they are incorrect. That date marked the celebration, at Promontory Point, Utah, of the joining of the rails of the Union Pacific, building from the east, and the Central Pacific, building from the west. I think every American has seen the photograph or representation of the two locomotives nose to nose, with the dignitaries in the middle driving the golden spike. Historians also refer to that line as the first trans-continental railroad, and I can agree with that phrasing, for reasons that will be clear shortly.
On January 27, 1855, the last rail was laid, and the actual first railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific was completed across the isthmus of Panama, after five years of construction. Although some writers have also called it a trans-continental railroad, I believe it is stretching the meaning of the term continent to apply it to that narrowest bit of land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The railroad was built to the unusual track gauge of five feet, which is 3.5' wider than the standard gauge used in the U.S. today. At the time of construction there were many different gauges in common use, and it would be many years before there was standardization at the 4' 8.5' gauge. The motivation behind construction of this railroad was to provide a shorter route to the California gold fields than was available by ship around the southern end of South America, and an easier route than overland across the prairies and mountains of the U.S.
In 1868 Mark Twain said this about his trip on the railroad1:
We took the train at Panama, clattered for two or three hours through a tangled wilderness of tropical vegetation, and discharged ourselves in Aspinwall. It is only forty-five miles. Going and coming, that little road has carried about 100,000 passengers for the California steamers during the past twelve months -- and charged every soul of them twenty-five dollars fare. About 70,000 of them paid twenty-five dollars apiece in gold; the thirty thousand paid twenty-five apiece, also, but whether it was in gold or greenbacks, I cannot say. One could travel by rail from New York to Chicago -- about 1,100 miles, I think it is -- for less money, when I went over the route last. ... It was a hard road to build. The tropical fevers slaughtered the laborers by wholesale. It is a popular saying, that every railroad tie from Panama to Aspinwall rests upon a corpse. It ought to be a substantial road, being so well provided with sleepers -- eternal ones and otherwise. It is claimed that this small railroad enterprise cost the lives of 10,000 men. It is possible.
The railroad was immediately profitable, although 60 years later the opening of the canal started the slow financial decline of the railroad. The irony of that decline is that the canal was made possible by, among other things, the presence of the railroad and its ability to haul literally hundreds of trains a day loaded with excavated dirt away from the canal excavation site and to dump that dirt in other places where fill was needed for dams and other construction. The large lake that the canal created required that the railroad relocate most of its mainline, and that new alignment remained in use until about 20 years ago, when railroad ownership passed to the government of Panama, and the line has not been operational for its full length since then. This dead railroad is the ghost I set out to track, from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
I experienced a strange and uplifting thrill upon arrival in the evening at the Panama airport. I cleared customs and immigration, pushed my way through the army of taxi drivers trying to capture me as their fare, and walked out into the dark tropical night. The parking lot was deserted, the air was hot and heavy with moisture, and strange whistles and cries came from the trees as I left the area and walked toward the distant bus stop. I was in a strange country where, for all immediate purposes, I knew no one and didn't speak the local language very well. I knew vaguely of a bus line that ran near the airport into the town 20 miles away. I felt strong and excited by the prospect of a new adventure, new scents, new sounds, new risks, and new opportunities to explore. Although I was not hitch-hiking, I was quickly offered a ride into town by a native before I reached the bus stop.
Panama is shaped like a letter S laid on its side, with the long east/west axis (about 400 miles long) running the length of the S, and the north/south axis (50-100 miles wide) crossing the narrow side. The canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but because of the shape of the country and the location of the ends of the canal, traffic runs basically north and south. Actually, traveling from the Pacific, one goes northwest, as counter-intuitive as that may seem. The country has no significant natural resources, and only a modest amount of agriculture. The economy is largely dependent on the canal, and its associated services. The two major population centers are Balboa (including Panama City and several other adjacent urban areas) on the Pacific and Colon (including Christobal and suburbs) on the Atlantic. There is a large international banking community in Balboa that serves many Latin-American countries whose citizens want a stable currency and location for their wealth and investments. Colon is a shipping and trading center for goods headed to South America from other parts of the world. Although Panama's monetary unit is the Balboa, there is no paper currency, only coins. American dollars are used everywhere, and the Panamanian coins are the same size and denomination as American coins, and the coins are interchangeable. The only international airport is 20 miles from Balboa, and there is no significant passenger traffic by ship to or from Panama. In Balboa Internet access was readily available near my hotel, so I was able to remain in regular contact with my family and close friends. Both within the two major cities, and especially in the rural areas there is much poverty and uncompleted construction.
Although the railroad is not operating any longer (the rails have even been removed from the one tunnel on the line), there is a small amount of activity along the right of way. For most of the length of the railroad the national power grid transmission lines use the same route, with poles on both sides of the tracks every few hundred feet. These 12 lines carry electricity from one side of the country to the other side, and supply power to operate the canal locks. Since the power line maintenance crews must have access to the lines for repair purposes, the grass is regularly trimmed so that it is between one and three feet above the rails, thus allowing four-wheel-drive vehicles access as required. On the more remote parts of the line, the crews that cut this grass travel by railroad speeder (a small motorized vehicle used to haul a few workers along the tracks), and I observed one such crew (which was very surprised to see me 10 miles from the nearest road or building) on my tracking expedition.
I tracked this ghost of a railroad by hiking along the right-of-way from the Pacific Ocean (Balboa) to the Atlantic (Colon.) I did this over five days, including pauses to photograph discarded or out of service locomotives, rolling stock, and various buildings and facilities. The first 5 miles or so are urban in nature, and the next 15 miles are through light jungle, with a paved road within a mile or less of the track. These first 20 miles were covered in two days with only a light daypack, returning to my hotel by bus or car in the evening. During those two days I also reviewed some government documents about the railroad, spent a few hours visiting one of the three sets of locks on the canal, inspecting one of the two roundhouses, photographing some old railroad equipment on display next to one of the former railroad stations which is now a McDonald's outlet, and, perhaps most surprising, cooling my heels in a Panamanian prison for a couple of hours. The railroad line emerged from five miles of jungle immediately adjacent to the prison, and I was taken into custody at gunpoint as an intruder into a security area. I was questioned and searched for an hour or so. The prison guards and officials spoke only Spanish to me; I made a tactical decision not to understand them, and to speak only English. The result was that a bilingual prisoner, a trusty, was used as an interpreter. He was an American citizen, from Michigan, with only a few weeks left to serve on a three-year sentence. After the search and questioning I was then detained another hour until a decision was made to transport me by police car to the main police station in the city of Balboa for further processing. During this time I enjoyed talking to the trusty, and learned a good bit about his personal life, including his family back in the USA. It did not seem tactful to inquire about his crime, so that remains a mystery. After I was taken to the National Police Headquarters in Balboa for further questioning and processing, I was released. I then returned by hired car back fairly close to the prison, and continued my hike along the tracks the rest of the day.
(Additional commentary about the prison experience, added after many requests for amplification: When I first emerged from the jungle and saw the building complex and the exercise yard I thought I was seeing a school and playground. Then I saw the barbed wire on the top of the double fences, and realized it was not a school. The track ran parallel to the canal, about 100 feet to the left, and to one side of the prison, about 40 feet to the right. As soon as I realized I was the target of attention from the guards, and heard the shouting, I shifted my attention to the canal, and continued walking. By the time I was at the half way point there were whistles and more shouts, and then I noticed a guard in a tower ahead of me. Although I continued to stare at the canal, out of the side of my eye I saw that he was waving to me. So, I glanced forward, made a big scene of seeing him and waving grandly back to him, and then turned my gaze back to the canal and continued walking. The guard disappeared from the tower.
He emerged a minute or so later with his gun stuck out in front, pointed at me. He held his carbine with one hand, and put up his palm on his other hand, signaling me to stop. I did stop, I pointed farther down the tracks, in the direction I was going, and said, in English, that I just wanted to continue down the track, and started to walk again. He took a step toward me, and raised his gun, so I stopped again. He then signaled for me to walk toward the fence. As I looked that way I saw another guard coming behind me, with a carbine also, and then another one with a pistol.
Until this point I had thought I was going to be able to bluff my way on, past the prison, perhaps after a pause or two. |
