Construction of the new Railway

The reconstruction of the railway took approximately 18 months, starting in February 2000. Passenger service began operations in July 2001 and the freight service was inaugurated December of that same year.

Several contractors participated in this historic restoration:

	Neosho Central America, Inc., a Railworks company, was the main contractor.
	Wilson & Company was hired to do the engineering and surveying work of the project.
	Constructora Urbana, S.A., a leading Panamanian construction company performed most of the civil work.

The materials utilized to reconstruct the railroad to world-class standards consist of:

Ballast 280,000 tons of granite ballast imported from Nova Scotia, Canada	Concrete ties 150,000 concrete ties manufactured in Colombia.
Rail 11,000 tons of 136 lb. continuously welded rail from Sydney Steel, Canada

In order to receive all the above materials, construction equipment and rolling stock, a private pier was built on the Atlantic side. None of the existing ports could adequately accommodate unloading and staging the required material.