ABSTRACT
Until the forty years surrounding the turn of the century, transportation technology in Colombia was on the whole limited to exploitation of the river system and of the primitive system of mule trails leading either from the mountains to the rivers or around rapids and sand bars on those rivers. The laissez-faire Liberal philosophy enshrined in the Constitution of 1863 strictly limited the potential role of the central government in transportation to promotion and improvement of inter-oceanic routes and rivers. This theory, however, was compromised in practice, and even during the height of the Liberal period the central government undertook the construction of a few wagon roads and bridges. Not until after the Civil War of 1876 was railway construction even indirectly encouraged by the federal government, and then mostly through subsidies to the state governments who were responsible for contracting for the planning and building of the railway.
