The Manila Railroad Company (MRR) was a Filipino state-owned enterprise responsible for the management and operation of rail transport in the island of Luzon. It was originally established by an Englishman named Edmund Sykes as the private Manila Railway Co., Ltd. on June 1, 1887. British engineer Horace L. Higgins was then assigned as its first general manager in Manila. On July 7, 1906, a separate private entity named the Manila Railroad Company of New Jersey was established. The two companies continued to own the Luzon railroad network until February 4, 1916 when the Insular Government acquired both companies and absorbed them into the new Manila Railroad.
The MRR was the largest single railroad operator in the Philippines of its time. It owned of track at its peak in the late 1930s, approximately one-fifth of all the rail network in the country by 1939. It also had various types of rolling stock from the early tank locomotives and boxcars of the 1890s to the diesel-electric GE Universal Series and Japanese-built steel-bodied railcars of the 1950s. Aside from rail transport, the railroad also invested in buses, the water transportation industry and the hospitality industry.
The Manila Railroad was then reorganized into the Philippine National Railways on June 20, 1964.
History
The first proposals for a railroad system in the Philippines was enacted by King Alfonso XII of Spain on June 20, 1875. It directed the Office of the Inspector of Public Works of the Philippines to submit a layout for future railroads in Luzon, the largest island in the Spanish East Indies. Public works chief Eduardo Lopez Navarro then submitted the General Plan for Railroads in the Island of Luzon on August 6 which was approved by the King Alfonso later that month. In 1882, a detailed design was made for the Ferrocarril de Manila a Dagupan leading to Pangasinan. Bids were laid out on January 26, 1885. The sole bidder was led by Englishman Edmund Hett Sykes' Manila Railway Company, Limited, known to the Spanish as Don Edmundo. His bid was awarded on June 1, 1887 but Sykes transferred the ownership of the consortium to Carlos Bertadano on July 8.
English engineer Horace L. Higgins was assigned as the overall general manager in the Philippines. Spanish officer José Gago y Palomo was also invited to oversee the overall security operations during the construction of the line. However, Palomo refused and instead joined the expeditionary forces of Governors-General Valeriano Weyler and Ramon Blanco against the Moro people, where he served as an engineer in what is now Tukuran, Zamboanga del Sur. Construction began on July 31, 1887.
Rolling stock acquisition began almost immediately with the five Manila class light-duty tank locomotives built in 1885 and 1886, though its operations were initially handed over to the Manila Tranvías. Soon after, the first mainline locomotives were ordered in the form of 30 Dagupan class locomotives from Scotland. Passenger cars were also ordered from the Metropolitan Carriage Company, later Metro-Cammell of Britain. These initial sets were quite short compared to those used in Europe and only accommodated first- and second-class passengers with 24 seats each, the third-class passengers were put into modified boxcars.
Philippine–American War
During the Philippine–American War, the railroads were rather neutral having supported both Filipino and American forces. Most notably, the Manila Railway was the primary route of escape for then-president Emilio Aguinaldo and his cabinet from the advancing American forces towards Central Luzon. Higgins himself was also involved in the sabotage of a bridge during the Battle of Calumpit. Not long after, the American forces also took control of the company after Aguinaldo completed his escape.
Despite being initially in Filipino hands, the American occupation of the Manila Railway and the Tranvía became instrumental in accelerating the decline of the First Philippine Republic and eventual capture of Aguinaldo in Isabela. Insurgencies came afterwards for the remaining Filipino forces during the war. American forces marked the rolling stock with various military company insignia until the insurgencies in Luzon ended in the mid-1900s.
American period
The negative sentiment of foreign journalists regarding the rolling stock urged the Manila Railway to order more proper railcars. In 1900, Delaware-based Harlan and Hollingsworth and Jackson and Sharp Company provided the first long coaches in the country. Metropolitan also provided their own stock soon after. By 1904, there were 120 passenger cars and 556 freight cars.
Two new entities were then formed in 1906, the London-based Manila Railway Company (1906), Limited and the Manila Railroad Company of New Jersey. That same year, the company managed to acquire its first tender locomotives in the form of the Manila Railway 100 class. The Philippine entity has been renamed into the Manila Railroad Company soon after. Before 1913, the MRR's American board of directors transferred from New Jersey to 45 Nassau Street, a skyscraper in New York City.
State ownership
The Insular Government of the Philippine Islands has proposed to acquire the Manila Railroad system in the midst of World War I. On February 2, 1916, the London-based Manila Railway Company (1906) Limited and the Manila Railroad Company of New Jersey were both acquired by the government and were incorporated into the new state-owned Manila Railroad Company. Higgins stepped down as president and a number of Americans handled the post of president and general manager, most notably United States Army colonel and Republican National Committee member for the Philippines Henry Bayard McCoy (1866–1923).
This brief period between 1916 and 1923 introduced the Americanization of the MRR. American-built tender locomotives replaced the aging Scottish-built tank locomotives and lighter-built tender locomotives. Annual reports have also adopted American English conventions as a result. Metropolitan, having been a long-time supplier of coaches under Higgins, stopped manufacturing for the country in 1923. American Car and Foundry Company stepped in as their replacement afterwards.
Filipino leadership
McCoy was then succeeded by the agency's first Filipino general manager, Jose B. Paez. The MRR during his term established its own rolling stock manufacturing facility in its Caloocan workshop. Initially tasked with the assembly of railcars or coaches, the MRR soon started manufacturing its own stock. In 1929, the MRR started manufacturing the country's first multiple unit train, the RMC series, in cooperation with Ramcar, which became the first ever diesel multiple units of Southeast Asia beginning 1940, when the then gasoline powered MUs switched to diesel fuel. No. 65, the twenty-first 45 class locomotive, was assembled in 1932. Not long after in 1936, then-Philippine president Manuel L. Quezon initiated plans for what would become the Mindanao Railway, an electrified standard-gauge railway compared to the steam-powered 3 ft 6 in gauge railways of the Manila Railroad during that time. Construction began immediately, but the project never went past track bed construction when it was abandoned in 1940. (Also available at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA). Aside from rolling stock, National Artist of the Philippines for Architecture Pablo S. Antonio designed several of the stations.Antonio, Pablo. (2015). In V. Almario (Ed.), Sagisag Kultura (Vol 1). Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Retrieved from https://philippineculturaleducation.com.ph/antonio-pablo/
Paez's term with the Manila Railroad then ended on December 31, 1941, when the Imperial Japanese Army took control of the Philippines in the midst of World War II.
Japanese period After Paez stepped down from his post as general manager, the Japanese Railway Corps took control of the Manila Railroad on January 1, 1942. The company was then placed under the administration of the Riku′un Kanrikyoku or the Land Transportation Management Bureau. The first train from Manila to San Fernando, Pampanga was inaugurated on February 15. The most notable event during its brief takeover was its involvement during the Bataan Death March to transfer prisoners of war from San Fernando, Pampanga to Capas, Tarlac in April of that year. Aside from deaths from starvation on the way to San Fernando, there were also accounts of prisoners of war dying on the train cars.
Services were returned on the Cabanatuan branch on May 14. The entirety of the North Main Line to La Union was reopened on July 21, 1942. The South Main Line was the last to reopen, having been reopened in March 1943. The Japanese then extended Main Line North from San Fernando, La Union to Sudipen near the border with Ilocos Sur. The extension held its groundbreaking ceremony on April 6, 1943 and the line was opened by the Riku′un Kanrikyoku in January 1944. The extension from Bacnotan to Sudipen was then dismantled in 1945 to reconstruct the lines destroyed during the war. Even then, passenger trains terminated at San Fernando with only freight trains continuing north to Bacnotan.
In 1945, amidst the Second Philippines Campaign, the Manila Railroad became the Luzon Military Railway under the United States Army. Around that same year, the Manila Railroad 300 class rack locomotives used on the Aringay line were scrapped during the Americans' northward advance. The nameplate belonging to No. 306 Mirador was rescued from the rubble and was restored much later in the California State Railroad Museum.
Third Republic The Luzon Military Railway, the temporary name of the Manila Railroad during the Philippines Campaign, was renamed back to the Manila Railroad in 1946. At the same time, Sergio Bayan filled the previously vacant spot of general manager and finished Paez's 1941 report. According to a 1952 report, 75 percent of all MRR rolling stock were destroyed during the war. The agency adopted so-called zombie cars as a result to augment passenger coaches destroyed by the war. These were gondola cars and flatcars with trapal tents placed on top to provide cover akin to reused boxcars during the early days of the Manila Railway. Additionally, the remaining serviceable stock were rebuilt from 1946 and became the 4, 5, and 6 series coaches.
A number of ex-US Army locomotives were also acquired such as the 800 class USA and the 8500 class diesel switchers. The first steel-bodied cars, marked 7C, were acquired from the Pullman Car Company in 1948. A purchase of seven 4-8-2 locomotives followed in 1949 to replace Manila Railroad 170 class units destroyed by the war, numbered the 100 class. Japanese company Nippon Sharyo also provided the JNR Class D51 locomotives in 1951 as part of war reparations, numbered the 300 class. This would be the last steam locomotive order of the MRR.
Cagayan Valley and Mindanao extensions
That same year, then-Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay was briefly appointed by Elpidio Quirino to the position of general manager. His 2 month short term as general manager realized the long-overdue extension of railroad services to the Cagayan Valley, dubbed the Cagayan Valley Railway Extension Project. In 1952, American consultancy firm De Leuw, Cather and Company also made a feasibility study for the construction of a railroad in the island of Mindanao, succeeding Quezon's proposal of 1936 and predating the Mindanao Railway of the present day. While it failed to construct the Mindanao railroad system, it succeeded in modernizing the Manila Railroad's rolling stock, acquiring more steel passenger cars and the dieselization of its fleet.