Pan-American Trunk Line

The Pan-American Trunk Line (Spanish: Línea Troncal Panamericana) is an international railway corridor connecting Anchorage, Alaska, United States with Panama City, Panama, running via the province of Yukon in Canada; British Columbia; the states of Washington, Oregon, and California in the continental United States; Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.

Operations
The Pan-American Trunk Line hosts both passenger and freight services.

Freight moves over the line in segments, with each railway operater handling trains on its own lines according to its own schedules; there is no interline agreement between the various railway companies involved for the forwarding of entire trains per se from the jurisdiction of one operator to another. With the exceptions of the US-Canada border between Alaska and Yukon, where track on both sides of the border are operated by the Alaska Railroad, between Yukon and BC, where BC Rail owns and operates the track on either side, and between BC and Washington state, where the operator is the Washington & British Columbia Railway on the western crossing between White Rock, BC and Blaine, WA and the North Western Pacific Railroad on the eastern crossing between Abbotsford, BC and Sumas, WA, international border crossings are treated the same way as interchange operations between different railway companies within domestic boundaries.

Passenger operations are similar, with the vast majority of services being domestic in nature, or operated by a single railway on its own lines; some through-car services exist, such as the Alaska Limited between Anchorage, Alaska and Seattle, Washington via Canada and British Columbia, the Cascades between Vancouver, BC and Eugene, Oregon, or the Internacional operated jointly by Ferromex and Amtrak between Hermosillo, Mexico and Los Angeles, California.

The only through service operating from one end of the Pan-American Trunk Line is a special North American Rail Cruise operating between Anchorage and Panama City since the summer of 2014. Passengers may depart from Anchorage or Panama City, travelling for fourteen days to reach the other end of the line, including stops made to allow excursion trips at various points along the way and for overnights; although equipped with sleeping cars, all travel takes place in daylight so that passengers can enjoy the views of the country through which they are travelling. Airfare to and from the start and end points is included in the price, currently BC£1,780 in second class sleeper, £2,950 in first class sleeper, or £6,400 in a first class suite.

History
Plans for the Pan-American Trunk Line were finalised in 1997, with funding from the governments of British Columbia, the United States, and Mexico, as well as from a number of private railways (North Western Pacific Railroad, Union Pacific Railroad, Canadian National Railway, and New York Western Railroad). Work to convert existing narrow-gauge lines in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica to standard gauge, and to build new lines to close gaps in those countries and in Panama, was begun in 2004. Construction was completed in 2011, with a formal Last Spike ceremony held at La Cruz, Costa Rica on 17 April.