This road has a number of good station-buildings, and a pier at Port Limon with all facilities for the quick handling of freight, especially of bananas. The freight rates are relatively very high.
The Pacific Railroad, about fourteen miles (or twenty-two kilometers) in length, belongs to the Government, and runs from Puntarenas east to Esparta, about seven hundred feet above the sea. It received in 1896, 18,486.60 pesos from freights and 19,392.80 pesos from passengers.
During the same time the Government expended 24,288.31 pesos in improvements.
Another railroad, on Government account, is under construction to connect San José with the Pacific coast, and a million pesos are annually set aside for the work. It is to be about ninety kilometers long and to run most of the way through the valley of the Rio Grande. The western end for about twenty-four kilometers will cross a roughly broken country in order to reach the roadstead of Tívives.
An important line of railway is projected to run from Jimenez, on the Guapiles branch of the Costa Rica Railway, fifty-six miles from Port Limon, to the mouth of the Rio Frio, near its entrance into the Lake of Nicaragua.
It is to cross the River San Carlos near El Muelle, from which point it is proposed to extend the line through a low pass of the Miravalles mountains, about two thousand feet above sea-level, to Culebra Bay on the Pacific. Such a railway would contribute enormously to the development of northern Costa Rica. The region traversed by the line is highly fertile. A connection of the Costa Rica Railway with Lake Nicaragua would also give to the State of Nicaragua a much needed convenient access to the Atlantic Ocean for nearly its entire trade.
Another important project President Iglesias contemplates. It is a ship-canal along the coast line from Matina to the Colorado River, and even on to the mouth of the San Juan, a total distance of over sixty-five miles. This coast consists of a continuous narrow sand bank between which and the mainland there is an inlet or arm of the sea, said to be navigable now for the whole distance.
This ship-canal would open an extensive banana region as well as excellent lands for the cultivation of cacao and rubber trees and many other tropical plants.
With respect to other internal communications, there exists a fairly good cart-road, opened about sixty years ago, from Cartago via San José to Puntarenas. Over this road nearly all export and import traffic was done until the Atlantic Railroad was opened in 1891.
Another cart-road runs across Guanacaste to Nicaragua. Besides these roads there is a small number of shorter and more local roads, not counting a well-paved one, about twenty-five miles long, now partly abandoned. It goes through the La Palma Pass towards Carrillo, Santa Clara and the Atlantic coast.