Guatemala Report *PIC*

Ex-IRCA 2-8-2 204 made its annual outing last Friday for a Ferrovias Guatemala shipper special. It pulled a tank car, 2 gons, and three passenger cars from El Rancho to Guatemala City. Two photo stops were made enroute, one at the Santa Rita trestle, and the second at one of the trestles above Agua Caliente. On Saturday diesels hauled passengers between Guatemala City and Agua Caliente for an all-employees family day at the Agua Caliente park.
Ferrovias has reopened the former IRCA/Fegua from Barrios/Santo Tomas to Guatemala City, and is currently quite busy hauling containers and steel plate. The big six axle MLW's handle trains between Barrios and El Rancho, where the trains are cut in half and doubleheaded B-B GE's complete the trip up the 3 percent grades to Guatemala City (where there is too much curvature for the MLW's). Before anybody asks the obvious question, it is very unlikely that any of the diesels are likely sales candidates for the C&TS or anyone else in the U.S. because those that can be fixed are likely to be needed by Ferrovias as traffic grows. Moreover, they are owed by the government, not by Ferrovias, and many of the stored units are heavily damaged and/or cannibalized.
There is talk of reopening more of the former IRCA/Fegua, but firm committments for traffic are needed first.
Interestingly the structure behind Ferrovias is a bit like the C&TS. The railroad (including the equipment) remains owned by the former government railroad (Fegua), with a staff to both oversee the operator and operate a museum. Ferrovias has a long term concession to operate the railroad. And there is a "friends of the railroad" group that is helping with historic preservation and the development of the museum.
Fan trips are in the works, although at this point the firmest interest in such trips seems to be coming from Europe.
The following picture is from the early 1970's when Fegua was running the railroad....although if you look closely one of the engines is still lettered "FIdeCA".