Electric railways set for renaissance in Costa Rica to help cut carbon

THE Central American country of Costa Rica is planning several projects to rebuild existing lines and to build an entirely new 84km long line in the country’s central valley serving the capital San Jose. The new line and some of the rebuilt ones (Valle de la Estrella- Limón-Rio Frio) will be electrified, although they will not be the first electrified lines in Costa Rica. Unusually for the Americas, sections of the 1067mm gauge network were previously electrified as long ago as 1930 (at 15kV AC), although later electrification of other lines in 1980 was at 25kV AC. Previous governments shut down much of the rail system following an earthquake in 1991 which led to the abandonment of much of the system and all of the electrification, which was either salvaged or stolen, although in practice some diesel trains continued to operate. Many of the electric locos remain in store, although two have been officially preserved. The country once had an extensive, 353km long, 1067mm gauge railway network, much of it designed to aid the transport of bananas or other produce to ports for export to the rest of the world. Today, apart from a commuter rail service in San Jose, operated with eight new DMUs supplied recently by CRRC in China, there is little activity anywhere on what remains of the system. Transport however, (i.e. mainly cars and trucks on the roads) represents more than 50% of the country’s carbon emissions (in part thanks to previous efforts to make the electricity grid almost entirely reliable on renewable energy) so plans to rebuild or create new electric railways will reduce both traffic congestion and carbon emissions. Reflecting this, both regional development banks and the United Nations have offered to lend over $1 billion to build or rebuild railway lines. The coronavirus pandemic has caused huge economic damage to the Costa Rican economy, which was highly dependent on tourism, and it is unclear how much of the ambitious rail investment plan will happen in the short term; political opposition to the spending plans is growing.

KEITH FENDER Preserved 15kV AC 1929 built electric loco 127 at the rail museum at Atenas station on the currently disused 98.3km long line between San Jose and Puntarenas on the Pacific coast on May 12, 2017; planning to reopen the line is underway led by Korean National Railways. The loco was built by AEG at Hennigsdorf north of Berlin (AEG 4086/1929) and was delivered as an 820HP A1A A1A. It has subsequently been rebuilt to BoBo wheel arrangement.