Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Nicaragua railway stamps, 1983


Actually Nicaragua is a country Steven Joyce should enjoy as today it has no operating railways. The majority of lines were closed in 1993, the last one in 2001.

Narrow gauge railways had been built there since 1878 on the Pacific coast. First was a Western division (from Corinto to Puerto Momotombo at Lake Managua, passengers to Managua had to change to a steamboat), then the Eastern division from Managua to Granada and finally a Central division connecting these two (thus eliminating the need for steamboats). In the following years, several branch lines were built. There were attempts to connect both coasts, but they all failed; except for a few isolated lines in the North, almost all of the network was in the Pacific basin. In 1993 there was 373 km (228 miles) of 1,067 mm (3'6") narrow gauge tracks in the Pacific region and an isolated 3 km of 1,435 mm (standard gauge) line at Puerto Cabezas in the Caribbean. Most lines were shut down on 31 December 1993. The last one - 6 km from Chichigalpa to Ing. S. Antonio - was decommissioned in September 2001.

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