Editing Transcontinental railroad (section)

===Panama===
{{Main|Panama Canal Railway}}
[[File:Panama Canal Railway.svg|thumb|{{center|Current Panama Canal Railway line}}]]
The first railroad to directly connect two oceans (although not by crossing a broad "continental" land mass<ref>Otis, F.N.,''"Illustrated History of the Panama Railroad"'' (Harper & Bros., New York, 1861), p. 12</ref>) was the [[Panama Canal Railway]]. Opened in 1855, this {{convert|48|mi|km|adj=on|abbr=on|order=flip}} line was designated instead as an "inter-oceanic"<ref>''"A Great Enterprise"'' The Portland (Maine) ''Transcript'' [Newspaper], February 17, 1855.</ref> railroad crossing Country at its narrowest point, the [[Isthmus of Panama]], when that area was still part of [[Colombia]]. (Panama [[Separation of Panama from Colombia|split off from Colombia]] in 1903 and became the independent Republic of [[Panama]]). By spanning the isthmus, the line thus became the first railroad to completely cross any part of the Americas and physically connect ports on the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] and [[Pacific Ocean]]s. Given the tropical [[rain forest]] environment, the terrain, and diseases such as [[malaria]] and [[cholera]], its completion was a considerable engineering challenge. The construction took five years after ground was first broken for the line in May, 1850, cost eight million dollars, and required more than seven thousand workers drawn from "every quarter of the globe."<ref>Otis, p. 35</ref>

This railway was built to provide a shorter and more secure path between the United States' [[East Coast of the United States|East]] and [[West Coast of the United States|West]] Coasts. This need was mainly triggered by the [[California Gold Rush]]. Over the years the railway played a key role in the construction and the subsequent operation of the [[Panama Canal]], due to its proximity to the canal. Currently, the railway operates under the private administration of the Panama Canal Railroad Company, and its upgraded capacity complements the cargo traffic through the Panama Canal.