Rail transport in Costa Rica is primarily under the stewardship of Incofer (Instituto Costarricense de Ferrocarriles), an autonomous institution of the state.

Incofer owns the national railway infrastructure and operates virtually all freight and passenger services, which consist primarily of commuter trains through the highly populated Central Valley.

[3]In 1871, construction was started on a railroad from Alajuela to Puerto Limón, via San José, on the Caribbean coast; the project was initiated by the government of General Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez and was surveyed in 1868 by the British civil engineer Edmund Wragge.

Due to a shortage of finances and natural obstacles (especially around Río Sucio), the construction of the remaining sections was delayed, and the entire line did not become operational until December 7, 1890.

The Pacific Railroad was officially launched on July 23, 1910, when the first Pennsylvania-built steam locomotive, María Cecilia, named after the granddaughter of former President Rafael Iglesias, departed from Puntarenas to San José with passengers and cargo.

[4] Due to the required hard labor and lack of personnel in the country, workers from Jamaica, Italy and China, immigrated to Costa Rica.

The railroad was jointly owned by the state and the Costa Rica railway company, with the latter behind the 1904 arrangement to build several branch lines through the banana districts of the Atlantic littoral.

Although it once connected the Caribbean ports of Limón and Moín with the Pacific port of Caldera, traversing the Central Valley area and Costa Rica's largest cities along the route, the system fell into disrepair towards the end of the 20th century following a financial crisis that saw the President of Costa Rica, José María Figueres, order the cessation of Incofer's commercial activity, resulting in the redundancies of most of its workforce except for a select few who were charged with preserving railway assets.

Since then, services have been greatly increased following investment in second-hand DMUs imported from Spain and the rehabilitation of dozens of kilometres of previously inoperative track.

[10] Visitors to Costa Rica may perceive the railway as being somewhat limited compared to other forms of transport, due to the current lack of anything except a basic commuter service.

Incofer runs the following routes (San Jose is the nation's capital): Currently abandoned and dismantled, the Ferrocarril de Quepos was an essential part of the banana production in the Central Pacific coast of the country.

[20] In April 2020 the National Concessions Council (Spanish: Consejo Nacional de Concesiones, CNC) rejected and archived the plans for the dry canal.

At the Hotel Los Héroes in Nuevo Arenal, Tilarán Canton (Guanacaste Province), a Swiss hotelier has built a mountain railway for the guests of his panorama restaurant, Pequeña Helvecia (little Switzerland).

The rolling stock had been originally used by a Swiss farmer from Chéseaux, who built a 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) field railway but never got a permission to run it.

[22][circular reference] Built in the 1970s, this is a small 1.2 kilometer loop railroad with a diesel engine and three passenger cars for family entertainment purposes inside the club.