This is the Philippine National Railways, the project that made transportation in the country evolve in a way where people from the North could reach the South. Although it was a grand project decades ago, it now stands as a stagnant railway where expansions and reconstructions was halted for almost 2 decades! but things are starting to change as lawmakers are signing numerous proposals stated in the video.

Courtesy of PNR, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, PNA, Manila Railway Company, PT Inka, JICA.

Some footage are for presentation only.

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A Documentary(envato)

Back in the olden days, the Philippine National Railways was said to be an incredible engineering masterpiece in the country, and people expected that it would continue to be a star project amongst other infrastructures, however after being more than a hundred years old, significant progress hasn’t really been seen for decades. But as of recent years, things are starting to change.
But before we go there we first need to go back to June 26, 1875, the time when King Alfonso XIII of Spain emitted a royal decree which established that the Inspector of Public Works of the Philippine Islands, Don Eduardo Lopez Navarro was required to submit a general plan for the establishment of a railroad line in the island of Luzon.

It took him 5 whole months of studying, planning and plotting, until he came up with the Memoria Sobre el Plan General de Ferrocarriles en la Isla de Luzon. It was the plan that had created the country’s first ever railway system.

Eventually, the concession for the construction of the railroad was awarded to Don Edmundo Sykes, and later became known as the Manila Railroad Company. In the following years, engineers and inspectors would lay down the groundwork for establishing the railroad, It was approximately around 200 kilometers worth of track lines, and eventually decades go by further expansion was swift, eventually reaching the southern region of Luzon, where more than 1000 kilometers of track was constructed. However, as years go by, the expansion has been moving relatively slow, there was even a time when over 20 years went by and things had been at a sluggish pace.
Only until recently, though, when several lawmakers across the country filed a number of bills for the modernization and rehabilitation of the PNR.

These operations are known to be as the railway system running from New Clark city all the way over to Metro Manila, the North-South Commuter Line, the rehabilitation of the south commuter lines, and the soon to be long-haul service line. This whole framework of this modernization plan is expected to be around 4,000 kilometers of rail track, quite an ambitious project indeed!
On top of all these, a newly proposed project that would be way over to the southern islands of the Philippines called the Mindanao Railway was introduced, it was a system that would span over 2,000 kilometers and it would go around the whole region and connect the major cities.
This will involve the creation of the MRC, also known as the Mindanao Railways Corporation, where it would be the one responsible to establish, operate, develop and maintain the railway transportation in the area. The first phase for this is expected to start in the year 2021, and cost over 36 billion pesos.

This is a big thing for the growth of the National Railway Industry in the Philippines, which seeks to establish a proper national railway system. The NRI encompasses the islands of Visayas, Mindanao, Luzon and the metropolitan areas in the Philippines. They also seek to consolidate all existing rail offices and agencies.

And besides this, other railways systems have been proposed, such as those by bill HB2027. It was filed proposing to establish a railway system that will be used to connect both La Union and Ilocos Norte. On the other hand, another bill known as the HB 1911 sought to create a Central Luzon Railways Corporation, which would serve, as expected, as the railroad and transportation system for Central Luzon.

The state of the Philippine railway system is far from what it could be. There’s a consistent effort from the government to improve the system, and after all, the railway system is a big part of the country’s transportation system. Knowing that this is vital to the economy, it’s essential that the railway system is improved in the coming years.

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