Lawa Railway

The stations in 1912 and in the 1950s

The Lawa Railway (Dutch: Lawaspoorweg or later Landsspoorweg) was a 173-kilometre-long (107 mi) single-track metre gauge railway in Suriname. It was built during the gold rush in the early 20th century, from the harbour town Paramaribo to Dam at the Sarakreek, but it was not extended to the gold fields at the Lawa River, as originally intended.

Private businessmen came up with the first plans, and the Governor of Suriname Cornelis Lely announced in 1902 that the government would build the railway to ease the exploitation of the gold fields. The track was intended to be more than 350 km (217.5 miles) long, but was built only halfway since the gold fields were not as efficient as hoped for.

In 1903 former seamen from Curacao began building the track from Paramaribo to Republiek; this section opened in 1905. They completed the section to Dam at the Sarakreek in 1912. The rail track was by then 173 km (107.5 miles) long and had cost 8.5 million Surinamese guilder. A 300 m (328 yards) long aerial cable car crossed the Suriname River, as building a bridge was considered too expensive. The passengers had to disembark the train at the Cable station (Kabelstation) and cross the river in a simple gondola lift. On the other side of the river, another train waited to bring them to the terminus at the Sarakreek.

When the Brokopondo Reservoir filled up in the 1960s, the track from Brownsberg Nature Park to the cable car was intentionally flooded and had to be taken out of use. The remainder was decommissioned in the 1980s. The last train departed in 1987.

In the 1990s Peter Sul of Lovers Rail tried to reuse the remaining 86 km (53.5 miles) for tourist trains, but failed to do so. Since then, some of the rolling stock rots away at the former Onverwacht station. The track in the jungle is overgrown and the section between Paramaribo and Onverwacht has been lifted.

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Wikipedia