Gran Ferrocarril de la Ceiba 0-6-0 Locomotives in Venezuela

Class Valera (Locobase 15076)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Vol 66, pp. 141. See also Rafael Angel Terán Barroeta, "El Gran Ferrocarril de la Ceiba." in the blog El Cronista de Tucutuc at [], last accessed 29 August 2013. Works number was 55313 in March 1922.

This wood-burning locomotive had both a saddle tank (600 US gallons/2,271 litres) and a separate tender.

La Ceiba lay south of Lake Maracaibo and west of Lake Valencia. The GFC de la Ceiba was the brainchild of French-born Benito Roncajolo, who arrived with his two sons Juan and AndrTs in 1876. Roncajolo had lined up financing for a shipping line between Maracaibo and Marseille (in France).

This 81.5 km (50.6 mile) railway, with major stations at La Ceiba, Sabana de Mendoza (km 35) and Roncajoll in Motatán, supported that goal. The line between the first two opened on 20 January 1887. In 1895, the latter segment opened to Motatán. It was a modest line with average speeds of 20 km/hour (12.4 mph) and top speeds of 24 km/h (14.9 mph).

But Terán Barroeta argues that it had other impacts such that when it opened, it soon became the most important, most advanced form of transportation in the estado Trujillo. In weighing the impact of the railway on Trujillo State, Terán Barroeta notes that from a commercial perspective, the benefits were derived both within the state and between the local interests and the external world which lay close by at the ports of Lake Maracaibo. But he adds that supporting the railway was a massive clearance of trees that stripped the area of the lush forests that had grown there.

As with many other Venezuelan railways, the GFC de la Ceiba encountered unanswerable competition with highways. By 1940, operations had reached the sketchy stage and the line was abandoned in 1945.