Who would’ve thought that a railroad in a Central American country, Panama, would be partially owned by an American based Class I railroad, the Kansas City Southern. As it turns out, the KCS and the Canadian Pacific RR recently combined to form the first and only single line rail network connecting North America, the CPKC.
The Panama Canal Railway parallels the Panama Canal and primarily transports containerized cargo between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea/Atlantic Ocean. For those modelers interested in intermodal container operations, modeling the Panama Canal Railway in HO or N Scale could be interesting.
About two years ago, a ship passing through the Canal lost its steering and crashed into the bridge used by the Railway. The railroad was out of service for five months until the damage was repaired. In the photos below, if you look to the left you can see the concrete supports that replaced the damaged bridge supports.
The size of the ships traversing the Canal is truly mindboggling. This ship was transporting 5,000 automobiles from the Atlantic side to the Pacific, probably to Asia.
