Life after death....

Thanks for the post Ed. It looks as if trains are (or at least were) indeed running in El Salvador again, even if only on a limited basis. After looking at the video I googled fenadesal's site, and twice per day diesel "communter" service was actually started between San Salvador and Apopo. Apparently the hope is or was to restart service between San Salvador and Sonsonate, and base some kind of tourist service around steam. I sure hope all this continues.

Fenadesal is a combination of the old IRCA and the seperate Ferrocarriles de El Salvador. Actually the 12 is an ex-FES engine and the line being reopened is part of the former FES. The FES did have some ex-IRCA consols, but they all retained their former IRCA three digit numbers (or at least had three digit numbers, there might have been some renumbering). FES also had some ex-Oahu Railwy engines.

The IRCA was dieselized and reasonably modern whereas the FES was a real museum on wheels, and largely link-n-pin right up to the end. FES never did dieselize until after the merger into Fenadesal when the ex-IRCA diesels became available. FES had one ex-Columbian diesel that I don't think was very reliable, and a large fleet of railcars (gallooping bananas).

More info about the FES can be found HERE.

Great news and thanks again for the heads up.

JBWX



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2010 11:02AM by John West.