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SAN JOSE 
7 
before beginning the up-grades of the mountains. The second 
part of the trip, in either instance, is made through highlands 
dominated by mountains and towering peaks. The mountains 
being comparatively near the Pacific, that road more quickly 
begins the grades that lead to San Jose. 
From Limon on the Caribbean the route of the railroad 
follows the course of the river Revantazon. Through this 
region the banana plant had its greatest commercial develop¬ 
ment, enterprises that made Costa Rica for many years the 
first banana-producing country of the world. The road marks 
a line of great undertaking; in few, if any other countries, 
have railroad builders encountered greater hardships than in 
the Costa Rican lowlands, where toil under tropical sun and 
rains decimated laborers, many of whom were contract workers 
recruited from islands of the Caribbean. 
After years of toil and heavy expense, beginning in 1871, 
this, the Northern Railway of Costa Rica, was finally com¬ 
pleted to San Jose. The original contract was given to Henry 
Meiggs, who built the highest railway in the world in Peru, 
the Oroya line. But most of the executive work in Costa Rica 
fell on the shoulders of the Keith brothers of New York. 
Several of these brothers succumbed to ravages of the jungle 
while Minor C. Keith, the younger, lived to see the completion 
of the great undertaking; later he became the father of the 
banana industry. 
The Pacific Railway was started inland from Puntarenas 
in the early seventies. This was the original undertaking of 
the then President Guardia, who obtained construction equip¬ 
ment and supplies from England. The two roads did not 
meet at San Jose until 1910. Today the Pacific Railway is 
operated by electric power generated in the mountains through 
which the route lies. 
