Container Traffic Handled by the Panama Canal Railway, 2002-2005 (in TEU)

After being closed for many years, the 47 miles (75 km) Panama Canal Railway was reopened in 2002 to act as both a passengers and freight service. It provides a dedicated corridor for maritime shipping lines to shuffle containers to and from the Atlantic to the Pacific side. Containerized traffic is growing rapidly, underlined the potential of establishing an mini landbridge that could complement the limitations of the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal railway appears to be revitalized either as a mini landbridge for full container loads or, more likely, as a way to shuffle a few containers between two separate pendulum routes in the Atlantic and Pacific without the tolls and the delay of using the canal. It also provides that added advantage of providing an alternative while the canal gets upgraded or to handle excess traffic in periods of congestion. The railway has a design capacity of about 2 million TEU.