Of trains, pains and promises

“I will have myself run over by a train if the LRT-1 extension to Cavite is not completed within my term.” The line, delivered with bravado and impatience, came from a late President who seemed certain the government machinery would move fast enough to spare him the embarrassment of breaking that promise.

History, as it often does with infrastructure in this country, had other plans.

A decade later, the Philippines finds itself staring at another railway promise that has yet to arrive: the North–South Commuter Railway (NSCR), billed as the most ambitious rail modernization project in the nation’s history and meant to restore a transportation backbone that once connected large parts of Luzon.

The old Philippine National Railways (PNR) line ceased operations in 2024, precisely to make way for the NSCR. Its lineage stretched back to the Manila–Dagupan railway, which began operating in 1892.

Built by the Manila Railway Company under British engineer Charles Swift, the line carries one of those curious footnotes of Philippine history: Swift was the husband of Leonor Rivera, the long-time love of national hero Dr. Jose Rizal.

From that beginning, a rail network eventually stretched some 800 kilometers from La Union to Bicol.

For decades, it carried workers, farmers, students and traders across provinces long before expressways carved their way through the countryside.

Neglect, disasters and right-of-way encroachment eventually reduced the system to a shadow of its former reach.

Even so, the aging PNR commuter line still carried tens of thousands of passengers daily until it was shut down two years ago to make way for the new railway.

Across Manila, Makati, Taguig, Bulacan and Pampanga today, commuters see the outline of a railway but not the railway itself. Concrete viaducts rise above neighborhoods and highways. Stations appear almost finished from a distance, but closer inspection reveals empty track beds and unfinished platforms.

The structures are there. The trains are not. And the project itself is hardly gargantuan by regional standards.

The 147-kilometer NSCR corridor is supposed to connect Calamba in Laguna to Clark in Pampanga, cutting travel time across Luzon to under two hours. Government planners estimate it would serve up to 800,000 passengers daily — nearly 40 times the ridership of the PNR commuter line it will replace.

Before its shutdown, the PNR line carried 20,000 to 22,000 passengers daily — workers, students and small traders traveling to and from Laguna, Alabang, Paco and Tutuban. It was slow and crowded, but it offered something rare in Metro Manila transportation: a way to avoid the traffic.

Years after construction began on the NSCR northern segment, stations in places such as Guiguinto and the boundary of Meycauayan and Valenzuela remain unfinished. In the southern corridor, the delays are even more glaring. Of the 19 planned stations, only four — EDSA, Cabuyao, Sta. Rosa and the Banlic depot — have cleared the complicated hurdle of right-of-way acquisition.

Right-of-way has long been the quiet killer of Philippine infrastructure projects. Officials say progress accelerated in 2025, when more than 56 percent of the required land for the northern segment was finally cleared, up from just two percent earlier in the year. More than 1,100 parcels of property have since been acquired.

But those numbers also reveal how long the project barely moved.

The delay extends beyond land acquisition. Families living along the railway corridor must still be relocated — more than 4,500 in the northern corridor and over 12,000 in the south. Relocation is necessary, given the dangers that exist beside the railway, but coordination among multiple agencies and local governments often takes years.

Meanwhile, the trains remain hypothetical.

The rail modernization effort — including the NSCR and the Metro Manila Subway — is approaching the trillion-peso range. Yet several projects were placed under the unprogrammed appropriations in the national budget, meaning funds could only be released once certain fiscal conditions were met.

In other words, the projects were announced before the money was fully secured. Ambition alone does not build railways; efficiency does.

Until the trains finally run (in 2032?!), the NSCR will stand as a reminder that in the Philippines, the greatest obstacle to infrastructure is rarely the engineering. It is the government itself.