Transand Railway

Mendoza – Los Andes
Transandino train in 1908
Route length:	248 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	3000 V  =
Maximum slope :	Adhesion 25  ‰ rack 76.9  ‰
Rack system :	Dept
Legend 0 Mendoza 767 m 13 Paso de los Andes 935 m 24 Blanco Encalada 1067 m 40 Cacheuta 1228 m 55 Potrerillos 1355 m 69 Guido 1511 m 92 Uspallata 1750 m 117 Río Blanco 2134 m 130 Zanjón Amarillo 2206 m 140 Punta de Vacas 2395 m 159 Puente del Inca 2717 m 174 Las Cuevas 3149 m Tunnel de la Cumbre (3200 m) Argentina / Chile 180 Los Caracoles 3176 m 185 Portillo 2867 m 196 Hermanos Clark formerly: El Juncal 2231 m 209 Guardia Vieja 1645 m End of the rack 214 Río Blanco 1452 m 225 Salto del Soldado 1262 m Tunnel through the Salto del Soldado 238 San Pablo 957 m 248 Los Andes 814 m

Bridge over the Río Blanco

Route section

Puente del Inca train station

The Transandenbahn ( Spanish Ferrocarril Trasandino Los Andes-Mendoza or Trasandino for short ) was a meter-gauge , 248-kilometer railway line between the cities of Los Andes in Chile and Mendoza in Argentina .

history

The project of a railway crossing the Andes had existed since 1854. The topographical difficulties in building such a route through the mountains made the construction possible much later. It was finally implemented by the English-born Chilean brothers Juan and Mateo Clark, who also set up the first telegraph line to cross the Andes in 1871 . In 1874 they received the Chilean concession to build the railway and founded the Ferrocarril Transandino Clark railway company . However, there were considerable difficulties in raising the necessary capital for the project, so that construction could not begin until 1887, which began from Los Andes .

The first section between Mendoza and Uspallata was opened on February 22, 1891. Gradually, additional sections were put into operation. The route was officially opened on May 25, 1910 on the occasion of the Exposición Internacional del Centenario , a major international exhibition in Buenos Aires to mark the centenary of Argentina's independence. In the meantime, the Ferrocarril Transandino Clark had been taken over by the Argentine Transandine Railway Company , which was owned by the British.

The Transandino made it possible for the first time - with multiple changes - to travel between Buenos Aires and Valparaíso by train, a distance of 1408 kilometers. For this, the travelers had to use the routes of five different railway companies. At the same time, it was the first South American rail link between the Pacific and Atlantic . The travel time was 36 hours. The same route previously took 11 days - covered by ship around Cape Horn - and was 5630 kilometers long.

Technical design

The route roughly followed the mule track on which traffic over the mountains had previously been carried out with mules . It connected the broad gauge railroad networks of Argentina and Chile. Due to the topography, 291 culverts with a total length of 438 meters, 39 bridges with a total length of 1,276 meters, the three kilometer long Túnel de la Cumbre and ten smaller tunnels with a total length of 533 meters had to be built on the route. The topography caused steep inclines and declines, which made cogwheel operation necessary in parts. The Abt system was used for this. On the Argentine side, there were nine rack sections on the 40 kilometers before the apex, each between 1.2 and 4.8 kilometers long. The maximum gradient here was 5.88 percent. The train used the Uspallata pass . At the apex, around 3,200 meters above sea level, the three kilometer long Túnel de la Cumbre was required. The tunnel breakthrough took place on November 27, 1909. The state border between Argentina and Chile runs in the tunnel . On the Chilean side there were seven rack sections on a route length of 24 kilometers with an individual length of up to 16 kilometers. The maximum gradient here was 7.69 percent.

business

Originally the railway was operated with steam locomotives . Two of them are in the Museum of Santiago de Chile . In 1927 the line was electrified . The route was always difficult to operate due to the high mountain climate. Sometimes it had to be banned for months in winter. Because of the high investment costs, the tariffs of the railway were about ten times higher than usual in Argentina or Chile. All this did not allow them to be economically successful. In 1934, 124 kilometers of the route on the Argentine side were destroyed by the tidal wave from a glacier run , but rebuilt. In 1948 the Argentine section of the route was slammed as part of the nationalization of the railways by the state-owned Ferrocarril General San Martín . During the political tensions between Argentina and Chile in 1977/78 the rail traffic was stopped. In 1979 there was briefly passenger traffic on the route. The remaining freight traffic was largely stopped on August 3, 1984 after an avalanche that destroyed the Chilean border clearance system. Only a remnant piece on the Chilean side between Los Andes and some copper mines near Río Blanco is still served by freight traffic. Until the early 1980s, the pass road was regularly closed in winter, so that the railroad was the only route in this region across the Andes. The Túnel de la Cumbre could also be used by road vehicles - in one direction at a time - when the railway was not operating. Traffic was regulated by traffic lights . This still happens to this day when a diversion for road traffic is necessary.

Planning for recommissioning

For a new railway connection, a new line from Zapala to Lonquimay was considered at the beginning of the 21st century . Since the new construction costs would have been significantly higher than the costs of repairing the existing line, the reactivation of the Transandenbahn was planned instead.

In 2006 the governments of Argentina and Chile decided to put the railway back into operation by 2010. The cost was estimated at $ 460 million. Individual works were started on the Chilean side in 2008, but soon stopped again.

On August 21, 2009, the transport ministers of the two countries involved signed an agreement that instead provided for a broad-gauge and electrified railway line, the apex of which would have remained below 2,500 meters above sea level and therefore would have required a trans-Danish base tunnel up to 23 kilometers long. The cost estimate was three billion US dollars. The project was apparently never officially discontinued, but will not be pursued any further.

literature

• WS Barclay: The First Transandine Railway . In: Geographical Journal 36.5, pp. 553-562 (1910).
• Biedermann: The Transandinavia Railway . In: Archives for Railways 1911, p. 366 ff.
• HR Stones: British Railways in Argentina 1860–1948 . Bromley, 1993.
• Martner: The railways of Chile . In: Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen 1916, pp. 649 ff., 892 ff.
• Offermann: The technical and economic development of Patagonia . In: Archives for Railways 1917, p. 82 ff.
• Transandinavia Railway. In: Viktor von Röll (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Railway System . 2nd Edition. Volume 9: Seaport tariffs - transition curve . Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin / Vienna 1921, p.  356 f.
• HR Stones: International Rail Routes Over the Andes . In: Railway Magazine 105, No. 699, July 1959, pp. 460-466.
• Santiago Marín Vicuña: Los hermanos Clark . Santiago de Chile, 1929.
• Max Wade-Matthews: The World's Great Railway Journeys . Anness Publishing Inc. 1999, ISBN 1-84038-480-8
• Hanspeter Fellmann, Bernhard Studer: "Transandino" . Memories of the boldest American cogwheel train. In: Railway courier . No. 6 , June 2020, ISSN  0170-5288 , p. 68-73 .

Web links

Commons : Transandenbahn  - collection of images

• Early documents and newspaper articles on the Chilian Transandine Railway Company (London) in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.lcgb.org.uk/html/santiagomuseum.htm
2. ↑ En julio se licitará tren Los Andes - Mendoza ( Memento of the original of March 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessdate = 2008-01-16 
3. ↑ Through the Andes not over them ( Memento of the original from June 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.