Salvador of the Twentieth Century

by Percy F. Martin

The property owned by the Salvador Railway Company, as has been shown above, is an extensive and increasingly valuable one. It embraces something like 100 miles of track, with its own telegraph and telephone services; a long and well-built iron pier, located at the Port of Acajutla, and which cost no less than $1,000,000 to erect; as well as warehouses and a fleet of tugs and barges for the prompt and efficient handling of the cargo.

Upon all sides one hears the services rendered by this company spoken of in a manner altogether flattering to the management; and it may be said in truth that in no other Republic of South or Central America can one come across a wider consensus of opinion favourable to a foreign-managed railway undertaking than in the case of the Salvador Railway.

To the not inconsiderable assets above mentioned, the railway has added a fleet of steamships to carry cargo between Acajutla, its own port terminal, and Salina Cruz (Mexico), the Pacific terminus of the Tehuantepec Interoceanic Railway. It is worthy of note that both of these railways are managed by British corporations, a matter of no small importance in view of the strenuous efforts of North American interests to secure complete control over the transport arrangements in this part of the world.

The Salvador Railway's first steamer, the Salvador, is a neat, trim, and well-built vessel of some 1,200 tons, out of the yards of Messrs. Swan and Hunter, of Newcastle-on-Tyne. It is fully equipped with all the latest appliances for the quick and efficient handling of cargo, while its passenger accommodation is of a commodious and comfortable character. This handsome vessel has for some time been firmly established as a favourite with the importers and exporters of the Republic of Salvador, who now, for the first time in their experience, are enjoying the advantages of rapid and reliable communication with Europe and the United States of America, with punctuality in regard to dates of arrival and departure each week. As a matter of fact, this service now effects in about two weeks, what could not be previously done in less than one month. The appreciation by the public of these advantages is sufficiently displayed in the circumstance that the S.S. Salvador carries something like three-fourths of the imports and exports of the country, to the great disappointment, and even dismay, of the older lines. Other similar vessels are being built for the Company by Messrs. Swan and Hunter.

The company has in view the rendering the same services to the other Salvadorean ports as that now offered to Acajutla and the Mexican port of Salina Cruz. An important local trade between Mexico and Salvador, to the mutual advantages of both, is now being built up, thanks to the initiative of the Salvador Railway Company in establishing this steamship service.

How successful the company's fleet has proved is best seen from some observations which were made by the Chairman at the last annual meeting of the proprietors, December 13, 1910, and in which he stated, inter alia:

"It is a matter of great satisfaction to me and to my co-directors to be able to assure you that we have not only emerged, in respect to this service, out of the experimental stage, but we have actually become a fairly settled institution as a steamship line on that coast. Instead of one boat, with which last year we gave such a service to Salvador by the port of Acajutla as they had never had before, carried out with a regularity and strict adherence to schedule to which they were utterly unaccustomed, your company is represented to-day by three steamers, and is making the service from Salina Cruz clear down to Nicaragua, embracing all the ports of Guatemala, Salvador, Amapala, the only Honduranean port on the Pacific, and Corinto. In barely a year we have found ample reason for increasing our service to three vessels, two of which are chartered boats, while we may be able to put in hand the building of a second boat of the same type as our first. This satisfactory result has only been attained by untiring effort; but we have reason to believe that your steamship service has arrived to stay, and that it will be represented by a substantial figure in the earnings in the future. The service has won deserved popularity by reason of its being carried out, as I have told you, with adherence to a schedule, and we now frequently receive in London applications from Central Americans travelling about Europe with their families to reserve cabins for them on our steamer Salvador. Mails are now sent by this service of ours in connection with the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and reach Europe in about sixteen days instead of a month; while the planters get their produce to European markets in little over thirty days, against forty to fifty by way of Panamá, and over one hundred by way of the Straits of Magellan. The passenger traffic on the Salvador, which we were all disposed to regard as something that might take a considerable time to develop, has already given results which you will understand better when I tell you that generally the accommodation provided for passengers on the Salvador is fully taken up. During my stay in Salvador I took advantage of the appreciation thus shown by the public of our steamship venture to arrange with the Government a contract for a subsidy, and we are now receiving £100 per month in gold on this head. I had the honour of being received by His Excellency President Diaz on several occasions during my stay in Mexico, both going out and returning home, and he promised favourable consideration by his Government of an application, which we have since formally put in, for a subsidy from that Republic, which is benefiting as much as Salvador from the development of your steamship service."

Deck Bridge on Salvador Railway.