The railroad in El Salvador: from illusion to abandonment. A brief chronology (1872 – 2018).

Abstract

The railroad system began as one of the most ambitious projects in El Salvador during the XIX century. It was launched by the Salvadorean government and the businessmen of the period. The first section of the railway in the country meant the opening of the national agricultural production to regional markets in Europe and the U.S. It generated great transformations in different spheres of the social life of the country; however, it was held back by the same forces that drove it at the beginning. In the end, it ended up in sorrow and the longing of what “it once used to be;” notwithstanding, this does not take away any of its historical relevance