International Railroad Discussion > Looking for information on Mexico -Honduras

Seriously is there a rail line that runs freight from Mexico to like Honduras and if so how long does it take a freight train to get there,

Guatemala lays between Mexico and Honduras.  The North American Rail network has always officially ended at the Mexico-Guatemala border at Ciudad Hidalgo in Chiapas, so no, you have never been able to load a freight car in Mexico or anywhere in North America and ship it into or beyond Guatemala.  The line to Ciudad Hidalgo has been out of service (possibly abandoned?) for years so you cannot even ship to the border anymore.  However when that line was still open, freight could be transloaded to a narrow gauge freight train in Guatemala across the river from Ciudad Hidalgo for furtherance into that country.  That said, I do not believe there was ever any rail connection from Guatemala into Honduras.  There was a rail connection from Guatemala into El Salvador. 

I will leave it to someone else to discuss the current status of Guatemalan or El Salvador railways, did they not shut down Guatemala a few years ago after some legal issues with the owner?

Visited Guatemala a couple of years ago and found the line in question had been ripped out. Bridges were still in place along the highway but no tracks.

dlh Wrote:
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> Visited Guatemala a couple of years ago and found
> the line in question had been ripped out. Bridges
> were still in place along the highway but no
> tracks.

Railroads are too expensive and inefficient for these poor countries to retain.  Trucks are the mode of choice.

Guatemalan railroads 3ft gauge. Honduras railroads a mix of 3 ft and 42 inch gauges. Guatemala is completely out of service and been looted by scrap thiefs. Honduras may be suffering the same fate. All of the 3 ft is gone for all practical purposes.

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reindeerflame Wrote:
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> Railroads are too expensive and inefficient for
> these poor countries to retain.  Trucks are the
> mode of choice.

I don't know if it's so much THAT as it is intense lobbying efforts by the highway, trucking and the trucking equipment-supply industries in shaping transportation policies.  With high unemployment in most of these countries, the rationale is to run lots of trucks instead of more efficient trains because you'll have to hire a whole bunch of truck drivers. Building and widening new and existing highways is also more labor intensive than building or rehabilitating railroads and looking for ways to employ a lot of people is a consideration that trumps what could be a more efficient operation (i.e., trains).  

This is what spelled doom to the Bosques de Chihuahua logging railroad in Mexico years ago. 

Henry Posner and his Rail Development Corporation's experience in Guatemala can tell you all about how corruption and lobbying efforts can, practically overnight, suddenly sway everything from rail transport to truck transport.