There are in all eleven railways in the country, but one has practically ceased to exist, and it is a long time since any train ran on it. The total number of passengers carried in 1908 was 413,000, and nearly 184,000 tons of freight.
Of the eleven lines the oldest, strangely enough, is not in the Centro, though, being connected with the main system by steamer, it may be considered as part of it. This is the Bolivar Railway, which commenced in 1873 as a line from Tucacas to the copper-mines of Aroa, and was subsequently extended to Barquisimeto. It has a 24-inch gauge, and its present length is 176·5 kilometres. The La Ceiba line was authorised in 1880, and has a ·91-metre gauge, with a present length of 81·5 kilometres; the same year saw the commencement of the La Guaira-Carácas Line, already described in an earlier chapter. Two years later a 1·07-metre line was commenced from the port of Guanta to Barcelona and the Naricual coalmines. In 1884 the Maiquetia-Macuto street railway was built to afford easy communication with the chief watering-place of Venezuela; it has the same gauge (·91-metre) as the Carácas line and is 8 kilometres in length. The railway from Carenero to Rio Chico was commenced in 1884, and is now 50 kilometres long, but, like the La Ceiba line, this is not part of the central system. The Central Railway, originally planned in 1885 to connect Carácas and Valencia by a circuitous route, never accomplished that end, and merely affords a means of communication between Carácas and the towns of Miranda, and is now 42 kilometres in length, with a gauge of 1·07 metre. The Puerto Cabello and Valencia line was commenced in the same year and is 54 kilometres long, while the Gran Ferrocarril de Venezuela, the German line, was contracted for in 1888, and at one and the same time obviated the extension of the Central, as originally planned, and completed the nucleus railway system of Central Venezuela as it exists to-day. It has a total length of 179 kilometres. The short line connecting Coro and La Vela was built in 1893, and is, like the Táchira line, commenced at the same time, owned in the country; the latter has a length to-day of 114·5 kilometres and is of the standard Venezuelan gauge, 1·07 metre. The Santa Barbara-El Vigia line was the last to be commenced (1896), but it has already fallen into disrepair, and of the 60 kilometres little, if any, remains in usable condition.
In Carácas a system of electric tramways not only provides rapid transit from one part of the city to the other but also runs out southwards to the suburb of El Valle. There are also lines of varying motive power and efficiency in Valencia, Puerto Cabello, Maracaibo, Ciudad Bolivar, Barquisimeto, Carúpano, and Cumaná. In view of the quantity of available water-power in the mountain districts of Venezuela, one imagines that electric traction will one day be very widely used, but, like many of the possibilities of Venezuela, this lies almost entirely in the future.
Descending to the less rapid methods of travelling by road, we find the whole country is in much the same condition as England or Western Europe four hundred years ago, for, with the exception of some ten carreteras of very indifferent quality, the roads of Venezuela are bridle-paths, and occasionally hardly worthy even of that title.
COUNTRY COACH: BARQUISIMETO.
ON THE BOLIVAR RAILWAY.
Such cart-roads as there are have to some extent been engineered, but none are macadamised. The best is that from La Guaira to Carácas, 35·4 kilometres long, but even this is little used by wheel traffic. One of the longest is the high-road from Carácas to Valencia, 168 kilometres, but this is exceeded by that connecting San Felix, on the Orinoco, with Guasipati, which has a length of 219 kilometres, with a 25-kilometre extension to Callao; the whole road is in a fearfully bad state in the rains, however, as to which matter enough has been said in Chapter XIV. From Carácas another main road goes eastward 70 kilometres down the Guaire valley to Santa Lucia, and yet another south-east to Charallave, 47 kilometres away. From Valencia, also, cart-roads radiate to Puerto Cabello (70 kilometres), to Nirgua (90 kilometres), to Güigüe for Villa de Cura (34 kilometres), and to San Carlos (99 kilometres).
There are also cart-roads under construction from Puerto Cabello to San Felipe, between Uracá and San Cristobal, and one or two in other parts of the Andes.