Rail transport in Puerto Rico

Although Puerto Rico did not have a national railroad system until the last decade of the 19th, between the 1870s and 1890s, the city of Mayagüez did have a small passenger rail system for transporting its residents, mainly along the current Mendez Vigo Avenue.[1] It was originally proposed by Jose A. Gonzalez y Echevarría in 1870 under the company El Ferrocarril Urbano de la Villa de Mayagüez (the Urban Train of Mayagüez),[2] with the line being built between 1872 and 1875. The simple street railway system consisted of small wagons on rails pulled by horses, and connected the center part of the town with the Playa sector (now Port sector). It faced numerous difficulties, including inclined routes and poor street conditions, which were troublesome for the animals. The system stopped in 1887 after the company was unable to obtain certain permits, but was revived in 1893 after a proposal by the company Sociedad Anónima Tranvia de Mayagüez (the Mayagüez Tramways Anonymous Society) and renewed operations in 1895.[2]

The new system operated more efficiently, offering more comfortable cars and more stops, including one in the town Market Place (Plaza del Mercado) and another in the Guanajibo neighborhood. The routes were altered to pass through McKinley Street, which was less inclined and with better road conditions than previous routes benefiting both the ride and the horses. It lasted until 1912, when the Mayagüez Tramways Anonymous Society ceased operations and was replaced by the Mayagüez Tramway Company in 1913.[2] The third operator of the system introduced new larger electric-powered cars, although the service was now limited from the Playa sector directly to the Balboa neighborhood. It remained active for 13 years, but after a major earthquake hit Mayagüez in 1918, coupled with the recent arrival of the automobile, it was shut down permanently in 1926.[2]

On the early morning hours of November 7, 1944, the American Railroad Company of Puerto Rico suffered the most violent accident in its history.[17] Train No. 3 was traveling from San Juan to Ponce carrying passengers to their different hometowns for the island general elections to be held that same day. It stopped at the Jimenez Station in Aguadilla for a routine engineer and fireman exchange with Train No. 4 which was heading towards San Juan. The engineer assigned to Train No. 3's ride from Jimenez Station to Ponce was Jose Antonio Roman, an experienced freight train engineer, but who had never worked in passenger travel.[17] When the train left the station at 2:00am, it was hauling six passenger cars with hundreds of commuters and two freight cars.

Cuesta Vieja in Aguadilla

At 2:20am the train started to descend a hill section known as Cuesta Vieja (Old Hill) in Aguadilla at what some witnesses described as an exaggerated speed. When the train reached the leveling-off point at the bottom of the hill it derailed. The steam locomotive crashed into a ditch and one of the freight cars crashed into one of the passenger cars, killing many inside. Witnesses described the scene as horrendous, with some accounts stating that parents were throwing their children out the windows to save them from the wreckage.[17] Chief of Police Guillermo Arroyo stated that the locomotive (No. 72), the express car, and three second class passenger cars were completely destroyed. Oscar Valle, an Aguadilla correspondent to the local El Mundo newspaper, summarized the scene in a more dramatic way: "The locomotive suffered a terrible explosion as it derailed, and the impact was so strong that 3 passenger cars were converted into a fantastic mound of wreckage."[17] In the end, 16 passengers lost their lives, including the engineer and the fireman, and 50 were injured in the crash.[18]

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  The former San Juan railroad terminal
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  Abandoned Central Mercedita Plymouth DE 50-ton locomotive in the Mercedita Serralles Refinery near Ponce
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  Old train bridge in the San Juan district of Santurce, near San Juan Central Park
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  Exposed rails at the Old San Juan Port, facing the old "Calle del Tren" (Train Street; today an exclusive bus street)

When Puerto Rico changed its mostly agricultural economy to a manufacturing one, and the U.S. and Puerto Rican governments started investing heavily in interstate highways and freeways, the railroad business in the island soon collapsed. The system was almost lost when the American Railroad Company filed for bankruptcy in 1947.[12] In an effort to save the system, former employees reorganized the company and formed the Puerto Rico Railroad and Transport Company serving as stockholders,[12] but by then the system could no longer compete with the increasing number of automobiles, trucks, and buses on the island. Passenger travel ceased in 1953, while the commercial service (mostly for the sugar cane industry) continued operating until 1957. Small portions of the system remained operational for local industries, including the Mercedita and Arroyo sugar refineries, until the collapse of the sugar cane industry in the early 1990s.

The last remaining part of the system used in operations was a small rail line located in the town of Arroyo, which was used exclusively for tourism purposes until 2005.[19][20] The rest of the system was either torn down to make room for new development, recycled (rails were melted and recycled and certain rail bridges were converted into road bridges), or simply abandoned. Remnants of the main system and lines can still be seen in some parts of Puerto Rico.

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  Remnants of the Mercedita Refinery and Central Mercedita rails near Ponce
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  Old train tracks at Central Igualdad in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
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  Entrance to the Guajataca Tunnel in Quebradillas, Puerto Rico

The Chemex Railroad (a.k.a. Port of Ponce Railroad) was a short, 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) industrial railroad located in the southern city of Ponce and was the last remaining operational freight railroad on the entire island until it ceased operations sometime in 2010.[23] It first began operations in 1988 under the control of CHEMEX Corporation's predecessor PharmaChem, a supplier of chemicals to Puerto Rico’s pharmaceutical industry, which primarily used the railroad to ship inbound chemical products via a railroad ferry connection from Mobile, Alabama in the U.S. mainland to the marine terminal within the Puerto de Las Américas.[24]

The entire rail system consisted of an eight-track railroad yard, a railroad ferry terminal, and two diesel switcher locomotives.[25] The two engines, an EMD SW1 and EMD SW9, made up the primary locomotive roster to assist in most of its switching activities and the loading of rail cars onto barges.[26] About twice each month from the Port of Mobile, the railroad ferry service transported an average of 24 tank cars throughout each voyage, delivering and receiving both loaded and unloaded cars from the terminal to the rest of the national U.S. rail network.[23][24]

The Train of the South was an historic, 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge plantation line dedicated exclusively for tourism in Arroyo. Several passenger wagons pulled by a Plymouth WDT 40-ton diesel locomotive transported visitors on an hour-long guided tour along old sugar cane fields. This line has been temporarily closed in 2005,[19][20] but there are petitions to revive and extend the system.[27]

El Parque del Tren was a little train within a park dedicated exclusively for park attendees. It was also the last remaining rail line open to the general public until the inauguration of the Tren Urbano. It consisted of a locomotive with various passenger cars which would carry visitors around a large recreational park in Bayamón. As part of early 2000s reconstruction efforts, the park was demolished to make way for the Tren Urbano.[28] Some of the park's areas have been remodeled and it now features some of the things the park had in the past, such as a blue-water lake. The area is now known as "Parque del Niño" or "Children's Park".