Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BUILDING THE PANAMA RAILROAD
So often overshadowed by the building of the Panama Canal, the
Panama Railroad
was
the world's first transcontinental railway and a phenomenal engineering feat in its own
right. Anticipating the gold rush, wealthy American businessman William Aspinwall con-
structed a 76km track linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to facilitate trade between
New York and the East Coast and rapidly developing California. At an incredible total cost
of almost $8 million (six times the original estimate), it became the most expensive track
per mile in the world, though the hefty first-class transit fee, $25 in gold, also made it one
of the most profitable.
The
human costs
were brutal. During the five years of construction an estimated
6000-10,000 workers died, though appallingly records were only kept of the white em-
ployees, who constituted a fraction of the workforce. The high death toll enabled the rail-
road to sustain a grisly sideline in pickling bodies in barrels to sell to hospitals worldwide.
Although most of the labourers came from the Caribbean, others migrated from as far as
India, Malaysia and Ireland. Despite the constant influx, work occasionally stalled since at
any one time only a third of the men, who spent long days up to their waists in swamp,
attacked by mosquitoes and disease, were fit enough to wield a shovel.
Little sign of the appalling human cost remained when the inaugural transit was made in
1855 amid much pomp and champagne. As one of the passengers wrote, “It affords the ob-
servant traveller an opportunity of an easy enjoyment and acquaintance with intertropical
nature unsurpassed in any part of the world”. The same is still true today.
The city centre
At the entrance to Colón, opposite the train station, is the
Aspinwall monument
, a rather dull
column honouring the American founders of the city and owners of the Panama Railroad. A
left turn takes you past the bus terminal, behind which lies the port enclave of
Cristóbal
, then
north up dilapidated
Avenida del Frente
. Running along the waterfront of Bahía Limón, it
was once the city's main commercial road but is now in disrepair. Just off Avenida del Frente
on Calle 6 is the boxing
Arena Teófilo Panama Al Brown
, named in honour of one of the
city's most famous sons - he was the first Latin American world boxing champion in the
1930s and one of the greatest boxers of all time.
At the northernmost end of Avenida del Frente, overlooking the Caribbean, stands the still-
impressive
New Washington Hotel
( 441 7133). Initially constructed in wood around 1870
to house railway engineers, the current stone edifice dates from 1913. It's worth stopping to
have a peek at the spectacular entrance hall, with its chandeliers and ornate double marble
staircase - poignant reminders of Colón's former splendour. To the right of the hotel as you
face the sea is the unassuming dark-stone Episcopalian
Christ Church by the Sea
(under
