FERISTSA

FERISTSA is the name of a proposed privately-owned commercial railroad going from the Panama Canal through the entire length of Central America, linking with Mexico's rail system at the Guatamala border thus to the United States of America and Canada.

Description

The railroad would be built using standard gauge and the main cargo would be containers from ports in Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Currently, standard gauge track does not extend continuously south of Mexico and many of the existing narrow gauge lines to the south are abandoned, disconnected, derelict or disused.

The FERISTSA, or a start of it, is one of the top 40 infrastructure projects recognised in March 2007 as significant for Latin America. [citeweb
title=Top 50 Infrastructure Projects in Latin America
author=CG/LA Infrastructure LLC
date=2007-03-07
url=http://www.cg-la.com/docs/web/LALF5-Top50.pdf]

Planning

In December 2005, the Shaw Group announced that it was in talks with a number of large United States railroad companies to operate FERISTSA. At that time, the Shaw Group estimated that engineering feasibility studies would be ready in two years, arranging the project's financing, the bank syndication and the equity investment would take an additional year and construction of the project would take another four years. ["Shaw Group in talks with US railroad cos for Feristsa project", The America's Intelligence Wire (Dec. 9, 2005)]

The project would seek funding from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Cabei) and Plan Puebla Panama (PPP).

Route

The FERISTSA goes North-South from Mexico (and thus the United States) to Panama and beyond, and complements the Trans-Andean Railways which go East-West.

* Mexico
* Guatemala
* Honduras
* Nicaragua
* Costa Rica
* Panama

Branch lines would be required to serve:
* Belize
* El Salvador

ee also

*Rail transport in Mexico
*Rail transport in Central America

References