Manila Railroad Company

Manila Railroad Company
Company typePrivate limited company (1887–1916)
State-owned enterprise (1916–64)
Ferrocarril de Manila a Dagupan
IndustryRail transport
Hospitality industry
FoundedJune 1, 1887 (1887-06-01)
November 24, 1892 (1892-11-24) (incorporation)
DefunctJune 20, 1964; 60 years ago (1964-06-20)
SuccessorPhilippine National Railways
HeadquartersCalle Azcarraga (Now Recto Avenue)
Manila, Philippines[a]
Area served
Luzon
Key people
Edmund Hett Sykes
Horace L. Higgins[b]
José B. Paez[c]
ServicesPassenger rail
Freight rail
Buses
Train ferry
Hotel management
OwnerGovernment of the Philippines
DivisionsManila and Dagupan Railroad
Tarlac Railway
Legazpi Division
Manila Hotel
MRR Auto Lines[d]
Manila Port Service[e]

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[f] as the private Manila Railway Co., Ltd. on June 1, 1887. British engineer Horace L. Higgins was then assigned at the helm in Manila as its first general manager. 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 1,140 kilometers (710 mi) of track during 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. Asides 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.
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