The cache is a black tubular container with an Official
Geocachel Label. Original content includes: custom logbook, pencil,
bilingual stash note, red Panama bracelet, PanamaCachers507
sticker, green Geocaching.com sticker, full color Geocaching.com
sticker, magnetic silver chess pawn piece (thePunishERD's signature
item). There's a metallic silver shark keychain/bottle opener
properly identified for FTF.
PLEASE RE-HIDE THE CACHE AS WELL AS YOU FOUND IT BUT BE
CAREFUL THAT OTHERS CAN REACH IT TOO.
Maybe you want to join this
search with others caches in the area like Goethals Monument by
Panamapilot, "Servidor de
la Nación Panameña", and "Big Smoke" Stevens Circle.
About Panama Railroad and the Old Balboa R.R.
Station:
The Panama Canal was a by-product of the Panama Railroad built
in 1855, fifty-nine years before the Canal was inaugurated in 1914.
The railroad project was an immediate financial success. The volume
of human traffic alone—upward of 400,000 people between 1856
and 1866—gave Panama a kind of most-beaten-path status
unmatched by any of the other canal routes talked of.
The infrastructure of this still functioning railroad (now
called the Panama Canal Railway Company) was of vital importance
for construction of the Panama Canal over a parallel route half a
century later. The principal incentive for the building of the rail
line was the vast increase in traffic to California owing to the
1849 California Gold Rush. Construction on the Panama Railroad
began in 1850 and the first revenue train ran over the full length
on January 28, 1855.
The little railroad was to begin in 1850, with the idea that it
could be finished in two years. It was finished five years later,
at a cost of $8,000,000. six times beyond anyone’s estimate.
Not only financial resources were in great numbers, but also in
human lives. It’s estimated that more than twelve thousand
persons died during the construction of the railway.
For a generation of Americans there was something especially
appealing about the picture of this line across Panama, of a steam
locomotive highballing through the jungle, pulling a train of
bright passenger cars, a steam whistle scattering monkeys to the
treetops—“ocean to ocean” in something over three
hours. It was also the world’s first transcontinental
railroad—one track, five foot (or broad) gauge, exactly
forty-seven and one half miles long—and the most expensive
one on earth on a dollar-per-mile basis, expensive to build and
expensive to travel. A one-way ticket was $25.00 in gold.
At the Balboa Old Passenger Railroad Station several commercial
sites have been rented by the Panama Government to local
businesses, one of them is a McDonald’s restaurant. Most, if
not all of these businesses are closed. The site is not an
attractive commercial area.
You can still see there an old coat of arms with the inscription
"Ferrocarril de Panama" from the past decades. Also at the right
side of this station, the area where the passengers used to take
the train is still there.
