ferreas — Ferrocarril — Puerto Rico Historic Buildings Drawings Society

ferreas

El Ferrocarril

The Puerto Rico ring railway was a railway line of metric gauge and via unique to that joined the cities of San Juan and Ponce along the North, West and south coasts of Puerto Rico. Services were inaugurated at the beginning of 1891. It was closely linked to the sugar industry and during the first half of the 20th century was a key part of the infrastructure of the island, allowing the transport of cane of sugar, sugar, mail, passengers and general cargo. Finally, it was displaced by the development of road, then the closed network and its tracks were raised. This railway was built on October 15, 1888, based on the specifications of the General Plan of railways to Puerto Rico of 1880, which provided a building it into four sections: San Juan-Mayaguez, Rio Piedras-Humacao, Ponce-Mayaguez and Ponce-Humacao. It was almost 20 years under construction in different capacities and the route originally planned never was completed. Its operation started in discontinuous segments, in 1891. The last trip of passengers was on September 21, 1953 but it continued working for the sugar plantations until 1957.