Furthermore, a part of the Northern Railroad project, the executive action #524 declared Puerto Barrios as "Major port of the Republic" and ordered to transfer over there the customs that used to be in Livingston.

Not only was the railroad vital for the Expo success, it was key to transport merchandise and passengers between the Caribbean Sea and the new Port of Iztapa on the Pacific shore of the country.

[3] Completing a transoceanic railway was a main objective of Reina Barrios government, with a goal to attract international investors at a time when the Panama Canal was not built yet.

After Reina Barrios's death, civilian lawyer Manuel Estrada Cabrera was designated as president and inherited an enormous −for the times− external debt with British banks, which forced him to search for an ally in the United States.

[4] Finally, in 1904, knowing the pro-American attitude of Estrada Cabrera, Minor Keith partners,[a] began to get concession on railroads of both Guatemala and El Salvador, and in that year, International Railways of Central American (IRCA) was incorporated in New Jersey;[5] the harbor was then partly built by Theodore Roosevelt's Corps of Engineers in 1906–1908.

[5] In order to establish the necessary physical infrastructure to make possible the "independent" and national capitalist development that could reduce the extreme dependence on the United States and break the American monopolies operating in the country, president Jacobo Árbenz and his government began the planning and construction of the Atlantic Highway, which was intended to compete with the monopoly on land transport exerted by the United Fruit Company, through one of its subsidiaries: the International Railways of Central America (IRCA), which had the concession since 1904, when it was granted by then president Manuel Estrada Cabrera.

The first train under RDC management went from Guatemala City to El Chile cement plant on April 15, 1999, and the rest of the line to Puerto Barrios was put into operation in December of that year.

In August 2006, the government of Guatemala declared a 2003 contract for the usufruct of rolling stock and other equipment as contrary to public interest (es:Declaración de lesividad), invalidating it.

[15] As of 2011[update], most of the bridges have been dismantled and sold for scrap by thieves, making a potential revival of railways in Guatemala difficult, as it would cost millions of dollars to rebuild.