Everything about Transandine Railway totally explained
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The
Transandine Railway (in Spanish: Ferrocarril Trasandino) was a
metre gauge combined
rack and
adhesion railway which operated between
Mendoza in
Argentina across the
Andes mountain range via the
Uspallata Pass to
Santa Rosa de Los Andes in
Chile, a distance of 248 km. The railway has been out of service since 1984, and has been partly dismantled. It is now being reconstructed.
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History
The Transandine Railway was first projected in 1854. However, the construction of the line was the work of Juan and Mateo Clark, Chilean brothers of British descent, who were successful entrepreneurs in
Valparaiso and in 1871 had built the first telegraph service across the Andes, between Mendoza in Argentina and
Santiago in Chile.
In 1874 the Chilean government granted them the concession for the construction of the rail link across a similar route. Due to financial problems their company,
Ferrocarril Transandino Clark, didn't begin work on the construction in Los Andes until 1887. The section between Mendoza and Uspallata was opened on 22 February 1891 and extended to Rio Blanco on 1 May 1892, to Punta de Vacas on 17 November 1893, to Las Cuevas on 22 April 1903. On the Chilean side the section from Santa Rosa de Los Andes to Hermanos Clark was opened in 1906 and extended to Portillo in February 1908. By 1910, when the entire line was first opened to traffic, the company had been taken over by the British-owned Argentine Transandine Railway Company. .
The line followed roughly the ancient route taken by travellers and mule-trains crossing the Andes between Chile and Argentina and connected the
broad gauge,, railway networks of the two countries, rising to a height of almost 3,200 metres at
Las Cuevas where the track entered the Cumbre tunnel, about 3.2 km long, on the international border. Nine sections of rack were laid in the last 40 km of track on the Argentine approach to the tunnel, ranging from 1.2 km to 4.8 km in length, with a maximum gradient of 1 in 17. On the Chilean side there were seven sections of rack in just 24 km, of which one section was 16 km long with an average gradient of 1 in 13. Sections of the line were protected by snowsheds and tunnels.
Characteristics
Railway companies:
The Transandine completed a 1408 km rail link between the Argentine capital of
Buenos Aires with the
Chilean port of Valparaiso, and provided the first rail route linking the
Pacific and
Atlantic Oceans. This journey involved the use of services operated by the following five railway companies:
Argentine Great Western Railway: Villa Mercedes to Mendoza (1,676 mm gauge) (354 km).
Argentine Transandine Railway: Mendoza to the international border (Las Cuevas, Arg) (159 km).
Chilean Transandine: International border (Las Cuevas, Arg) to Santa Rosa de Los Andes (1,000 mm gauge) (73 km).
Chilean State Railway: Santa Rosa de Los Andes to Valparaíso (1,676 mm gauge) 134 km).
Additional information:
Passenger services from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso took about 36 hours in total, including changes of train in Mendoza and Los Andes, required because of the break-of-gauge at these points. Previously the 5630 km journey by sea from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso, around Cape Horn, had taken eleven days.
The Chilean Transandine railway was electrified in 1927 with Swedish-build electric locomotives.
A glacial flood in 1934 destroyed 124 km of the Argentine section, which was later rebuilt.
When the entire Argentine railway network was nationalised in 1948, the Transandine Railway became part of the state-owned company Ferrocarril General San Martín.
In 2006, both the Argentine and Chilean governments agreed to refurbish the railway and make it functional by the year 2010, at an estimated total cost of US$460 million. However, progress has been limited, although travellers in April 2008 saw some activity on the Chilean side, including ballast renewal at the Aconcagua power station and labourers in action at Los Andes.Further Information
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