Every morning (weekdays) at 7 a.m. a comfortable passenger train departs from Panama City to cross the Isthmus. It does not return to Panama until 6 p.m. in the afternoon so once in Colon, you will have to take a taxi back to Panama. While you're in Colon, you can visit the Gatun locks (the Canal's biggest) and San Lorenzo National Park with its Spanish-built fortress, right at the entrance of the Chagres river.

A few interesting facts about the Panama Railroad

The PRR was the most expensive (per mile) railroad ever built. It cost 8 million dollars and took 5 years to build. That forty-seven and a half miles of railroad had required 170 bridges and culverts of 15 feet or more, and 134 bridges and culverts of less than 15 feet.

In 1913 the Panama Railroad hauled 2,916,657 passengers and transported 2,026,852 tons of freight across the Isthmus; at this time it was reported to have the heaviest per-mile traffic of any railroad in the world. At $295 a share, the Panama Railroad was at one time the highest-priced stock on the New York Stock Exchange!

At at US$25.00 in gold, for 47 and a half miles, the PRR was the most expensive railroad (per mile) to travel (and still is at $ 20).

More than 12,000 people died in the construction of the Panama Railroad. Disposing of the dead was becoming such a problem, that the Railroad started "pickling" the bodies in barrels and selling them to medical schools. The proceeds were then used to build a hospital for the Railroad. During the first 12 years of its operations, the Panama Railroad carried over $750,000,000 in gold dust, nuggets, and gold and silver coin--and collected a quarter of one percent on each shipment.

Even though built by American Engineers, the Panama Railroad used a non-standard guage of five feet, and is unchanged till today. The Panama Railroad used "hollow" rails.

The Panama Canal would have been impossible to build without the Panama Railroad.