CENTRAL AMERICA.- In Central America through connections from ocean to ocean are afforded in three countries, Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala (considering Panama a part of Central America). On these and other Central American lines the traveler will find some of the finest scenery attending railway travel anywhere in North and South America. Both freight and passenger rates are high, but the service in general is good. The oldest and best-known line, the Panama Railway, has been carrying immense amounts of traffic across the isthmus since it was opened in 1855, and its earnings have been very large. It is 47 miles long, and the trip between the Atlantic and Pacific terminals is made in about one and one quarter hours. From Port Lim6n, in Costa Rica, the three and one-half foot gauge Costa Rica Railway (leased by the Northern Rail way of Costa Rica) carries the tourist through wild and beautiful country to the capital, San Jose, in some five or six hours, a daily service being maintained in both directions. The fare is $3.90 gold. Over another line the traveler may also reach the Pacific Coast at Puntarenas, 69 miles from San Jose, in about the same time. The freight traffic of these Costa Rican railways is very largely made up of bananas and coffee shipped by the United Fruit Company. A sys tem that premises much for the future develop ment of Central America is that of the Inter national Railways of Central America. This now includes the lines joined to make the ocean-to-ocean route from Puerto Barrios, on the Atlantic, to San Jose on the Pacific, together with a branch at Santa Maria and a line run ning westward from La Union, Salvador. When projected roads are completed the Inter national Railways will have continuous track from the Mexican border to Panama, which will complete the North American part of the Pan American Railway.
The railway mileage of the countries of Central America is as follows: Panama, 202 miles; Costa Rica, 450 miles; Nicaragua, 200 miles; Salvador, 184 miles; Honduras, 300 miles; Guatemala, 500 miles.* Ocean The fact that a large part of the foreign trade of South Amer ica has been with Europe has caused a great development of ocean transportation service be tween the two continents. .Until a few years
before the World War the only regular com munication of any importance between South America and the outside world was over the lines of ships that ran to European ports. It was customary for passengers hound for South America from the United States to go by way of Liverpool or Hamburg, and a great deal of freight was also routed via these ports. While this has decidedly chanted and the United States enjoys reasonably good freight service with South America, it is nevertheless true that in normal times transportation facilities to and from Europe are immensely better than to and from the United States. This is due in large part to the nature of the resources and com merce of Europe, South America and the United States. South America is distinctly a continent of raw materials, while Europe is a producer of manufactured articles and has been, moreover, an investor of immense amounts of capital. A heavy volume of oversea traffic and a consequent growth of shipping was, there fore, very logical. The United States, on the other hand, has until recent years supplied it self with most of its foodstuffs and other raw materials and has also not actively sought for eign markets for its factory products. Direct transportation facilities to South America, therefore, have been in demand only in a com paratively few years and the freight and pas senger traffic, even after direct service was well established, has been carried almost wholly in foreign bottoms. Before the beginning of the European War a triangular trade route had been evolved by which vessels carried manufac tured goods from Europe to South America, coffee, hides and a few other staples from South America to the United States and various American exports to Europe. The radical changes resulting from the war, together with the steadily increasing interest of the United States in South American trade, will undoubt edly cause the establishment of more ample direct facilities between North and South America, which in time will rival the facilities heretofore enjoyed by European countries.