Im headed to the Dominican Republic in a few weeks and should have some railfanning time What if any is the railroad situation in the Santo Domingo area? Any rosters available of sugar plantation and mainline railroads if any?

According to the World Almanac (2008 edition), the Dominican Republic has 321 miles of railroad (not bad for an island nation). This is probably main line; the Almanac most likely would not list industrial railway mileage. If one reads the sports pages this time of year, it's easy to assume that the Dominican Republic's chief export is baseball players.

Probably cigars...

I just checked the Light Rail Transport Assn. website; the Dominican Republic has no electric railway passenger operations.

Here are some websites you may find of interest -

First, an overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_ ... n_Republic

The Santo Domingo Metro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Domingo_Metro

The Dominican sugar manufacturing institute, where you'll find the country's sugar mills by clicking "Productores/Ingenios"
http://www.inazucar.gov.do/index.html

Finally, the country's biggest sugar operation by far, the Central Romana Corporation at La Romana, approx. 118 miles from Santo Domingo. Their website says they have 17 locomotives. The few photos I've seen show GE endcabs, 95-tonners(?). There's no contact info on their website, other than for employment, but on IAD's site, an office in Santo Domingo is shown. Phoning/emailing that office might produce permission to visit their operations.
http://www.centralromana.com.do/index/php?lng=en

Other than sugar railways and the Metro, there is a Dominican Government Railway, but I've found no useful information about it.

Bear in mind that the Dominican Republic has received much bad publicity about the (alleged?) exploitation of Haitian sugarcane workers, and that could have an adverse effect on visiting the sugar railways.

Jim Tatum

Use this URL instead for Central Romana
http://www.centralromana.com.do/index.php

Jim Tatum.