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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 via the Uspallata Pass to Los Andes in Chile, a distance of 251 km. The railway has been out of service since 1984, and has been partly dismantled.
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 (5ft 6in) 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.
The original idea to build the line came from Juan and Mateo Clark, Chilean brothers of British descent, who were successful entrepreneurs in Valparaiso. In 1871 they had already built the first telegraph service across the Andes, between Argentina and Chile and in 1874 the Chilean government granted them the concession for the construction of the rail link. Due to financial problems their company, ''Ferrocarril Transandino Clark'', did not begin work on the construction in Los Andes until 1889. 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 Los Andes to Hermanos Clark was opened in 1906 and extended to Portillo in February 1908. The entire line was opened to traffic in 1910, by which time the company had been taken over by the British-owned company the Argentine Transandine Railway.
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:

Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway: Buenos Aires (Retiro terminus) to Villa Mercedes (689 km).

Argentine Great Western Railway: Villa Mercedes to Mendoza (354 km).

Argentine Transandine Railway: Mendoza to the international border (159 km).

Chilean Transandine: international border to Los Andes (73 km).

Chilean State Railway: Los Andes to Valparaiso (134 km).

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 changes in 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 Tranandine railway was electrified in 1927.
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, during Juan Peron's presidency, the Transandine Railway became part of the state-owned company Ferrocarril General San Martín.
As of March 2006, both trans-Andean governments have agreed to refurbish the railway and make it functional by the year 2010, at an estimated total cost of $460 million USD.^[1]

Contents

References

See also

External links

References

W.S.Barclay, ''The First Transandine Railway'', Geographical Journal, Vol.36, No.5, 553-562 (1910).

H.R.Stones, ''International Rail Routes Over the Andes'', Railway Magazine, Vol.105, No.699, July 1959, pp. 460-466.

1. [1] The rebuild will be adhesion only.

See also

★ Central Trans-Andean Railway

★ Trasandino

External links

★ El Ferrocarril Trasandino Los Andes - Mendoza

★ Museo Ferrocarril Transandino

★ Revisiting the Transandine Railway

★ Se construye el tren Los Andes - Mendoza