Rail transport in Honduras

An American construction company was hired to carry out the work; but, a coup d'état perpetrated by General Juan López Aguirre, which would remove President Cabañas from the administration frustrated both the idea and its continuity.

For such an adventure, Medina contacted the plenipotentiary ambassador of Honduras in Europe, Attorney Carlos Gutiérrez who, together with the French-born Mr. Jean Víctor Herrán Note 3, moved to England to hold talks with the English kingdom and thus finance the work through a loan.

On February 20, 1868, President José María Medina signed the government decree for the construction of the railway and for this he contracted the American businessman William Mcandlish and company for said work and to whom the diplomat Carlos Gutiérrez claimed to have delivered 50,000 pounds sterling on date 10 November 1868, that is why on January 18, 1869, the engineer Enrique O'Hagans would arrive in Omoa to carry out the operations of territorial study, location of equipment, relocation of houses, etc.

Although, of all that money, the government coffers only received only 300,000 British Pounds, since the European bankers saw a way to collect the interest of a good payer, in the same way other money was used to pay the diplomatic representatives.At the end of it all, the national territory was submerged in a civil war and with only one section of the railway built and in January 1870, the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Francisco Alvarado, had reported that the section would be completed by November of the year.

Honduras was governed by Doctor Marco Aurelio Soto who on November 8, 1876, decided to suppress the London legation under Gutiérrez, as well as that of Paris in the hands of Víctor Herrán; For this, the inheritance of this debt would also be carried by his successors and the Railroad operated normally despite only having 100 kilometers (62 mi).

The Decree established as a procedure the integration of a special committee, so that in the month of August of the same year, Adolfo Zuñiga, Carlos Ernesto Bernhard and Miguel A. Lardizabal, Mr. Policarpo Bonilla and Mr. Julio Lozano were appointed in secretary quality.

The Vaccaro Brothers Company, as other concessionaires on the north coast did later, took advantage of the privileges granted by the concessions to export bananas from the port city of La Ceiba.

Previously on February 24, 1920, the Honduran government granted a concession for the Construction and maintenance and exploitation of the railway in the Department of Colón, between the same and the company represented by William N. Zuber in favor of Carmelo D´Antoni and published in La Gaceta No.

In the early 1960s all steam locomotives were replaced by diesel electric machines.6 Since 1952 there has been no real significant increase in rolling equipment endowments in any of the railway companies by the Honduran government.

The national railway started from Puerto Cortés, crossed the Sula Valley and ended in Potrerillos, being an approximate distance of 95 kilometers and 10 stations.

private sector, which managed to keep it in good shape by providing an efficient public transport service until the 1990s, buying new machines such as changing steam locomotives to diesel and acquiring more rail buses that made trips from Puerto Cortes, passing through San Pedro Sula and Tela, one being of the Japanese brand Nippon Sharyo model 1967, which operated until the 2000s.