Early travelers til about 1851 had a difficult time knowing if and when a paddle steamer would arrive. Vanderbilt started his service with steamer "Independence" in July 1851 and was soon joined by the steamer "Prometheus" and "Pacific". The line prospered offering serious competition to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. By 1852 there are a recorded 17,400 Nicaragua crossing passengers compared to 29,600 crossing Panama. These numbers closed to 24,000 Nicaragua crossings in 1852 to 27,200 Panama crossings in 1853. As the Panama Railroad progressed across the Isthmus of Panama they took more and more of the traffic and after the railroad was completed in 1855 with a cost of about 5,000 lives and $8,000,000, combined with civil strife in Nicaragua, the Nicaragua route was almost shut down.