TRACKING THE GAUGES
- GAUGING THE TRACKS
The Story of the World’s Railway Gauges, Yesterday and Today
Part 7 – The Americas
By
Michael Frewston
© Copyright Frewston Books Online 2016
Table of Contents
PART 7 – THE AMERICAS
SOUTH AMERICA
CHILE
ARGENTINA
URUGUAY
PARAGUAY
BOLIVIA
BRAZIL
PERU
ECUADOR
SURINAME AND FRENCH GUIANA
GUYANA
VENEZUELA
COLOMBIA
CENTRAL AMERICA
PANAMA
COSTA RICA
NICARAGUA, HONDURAS, EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, BELIZE
CUBA
OTHER CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES
(ICELAND)
NORTH AMERICA
MEXICO
USA
First Railways:
Early Gauges:
The 1473 mm (4 ft 10 in) Ohio ‘broad gauge’:
Pie-men and Peanuts: The Erie Gauge War:
The American Civil War:
The Transcontinental Link:
Bogie Exchange:
Converting to Standard gauge:
Pennsylvania Trolley gauge:
Standard gauge visitors from other lands:
Narrow gauge:
Interurbans:
Main-line railways:
Trams and metros:
CANADA
Early history:
Converting to Standard gauge:
The National Dream – the building of Canada:
Main-line railways today:
Narrow gauge:
Radials, trams and metros:
Songs about Canada’s railways:
EPILOGUE
PART 7 – THE AMERICAS
The South Pacific is a big ocean. And while it has many small island countries that are the stuff of South Sea legends and idyllic lifestyles (as well as movies and stage shows), once we leave New Zealand there are no railways until we reach the shores of South America. Our travels then extend from the south to the north of the American continent – a total length in a more-or-less straight line of 20 000 km, but many times more than that as we criss-cross between west and east coasts as well.
A total of over 30 countries comprise this Part (I have incorporated Iceland, which, although strictly speaking is not part of the Americas, is not part of anywhere else either, so as a matter of convenience I have decided to include it here – its story is little more than a paragraph or two anyway). With the inclusion of the USA, which has the most route distance of any country on the planet, as well as Canada, the second largest country geographically after Russia, this Part promises to be the largest by far.
We think of South America – speaking mostly Spanish or Portuguese – as a continent influenced heavily by southern European interests and their standards. However, when it comes to railway gauges, much of the continent echoes the situation we found in Australia in Part 6 – a multiplicity of gauges, including both broader and narrower gauges as well as Standard. And these different gauges are found not only between countries, but also extensively within individual countries.
But unlike Australia, where that country is now facing up to the fact that all its railways should one day be to Standard gauge, no such consensus or overriding policy in terms of settling on a particular gauge exists on the South American continent. Consequently, there are least five gauges in common use, while two more were once to be found on significant minor railways that today have either closed or are tourist lines.
There is no doubt in my mind that these gauge differences, and the consequential breaks of gauge that make any journeys beyond a specific area difficult, have been a major factor in the decline of long distance railway travel throughout South America, not only for passenger traffic (where the airplane admittedly often makes more sense), but for freight as well, where the railway should be predominant in moving heavy loads over long distances, but seems to have relinquished that role to the heavy road-going truck.
Whether that decline can be reversed remains to be seen, but the well-established airline network in both North and South America will mitigate strongly against any such initiatives, at least for human passenger travel in the foreseeable future. Even the proposed high speed passenger lines intended to compete with the airlines are facing huge opposition, where the residents of the countries making such proposals, such as Brazil, demand that the money can be better spent elsewhere, or even not spent at all. Whether long-distance freight haulage can be retrieved from the trucking industry is an open question at the moment.
But there is still an awful lot of railway, not only in Brazil, but everywhere else throughout both North, Central and South America. Notwithstanding the heavy Iberian influence in South America, it was the British however who, initially at least, had probably the greatest say in the development of railways in such countries as Chile, Argentina and Peru. Hence we can still see remnants of British practices and standards – including the choice of railway gauges.
British interests of course were intrinsically bound up in the very first railways built in the USA – that country’s first locomotives were direct imports from ‘the old country’. These imports, themselves still at the very earliest stages of locomotive design and construction, were soon found to be inherently unsuited to the requirements of a huge pioneering country, with its long distances and cheaply constructed trackwork, and it didn’t take long for the USA to go its own way in terms of railway construction – including (at least in many parts of the country) its own gauges.
Much of the country however still retained the use of Standard gauge in those early days when vast lengths of new line were built. Standard gauge that initial cheaply-constructed track may have been, at least to begin with (this Part will include many stories about how many interests imposed other gauges), but the way the track was built was quite different from the way Britain was doing it in those early days.
The result was that successful railway operations in the USA required something better, in terms of a locomotive design, that was better able to negotiate poor track standards, than was available at the time from Britain. It didn’t take very long for the USA to embrace a somewhat different philosophy when it came to developing railways.
I used in a previous paragraph the term ‘at least to begin with’ when referring to the use of Standard gauge for the USA’s first railways. For the USA’s history of railway gauges is another of those stories where ensuing gauge disparities, as individual pioneers felt that they could build better railways than their competitors, went to the very heart of that country’s history and development – and possibly even affecting that of the world. As hinted at in Part 1 of this book (the chapter entitled Gauges and the World at War), America had its own war – the Civil War – where railway gauge incompatibilities changed the course of this War, and possibly the very nature of the country once hostilities ceased.
Would America be a different place today if all railways in that huge country had been built to the same gauge prior to the start of the Civil War? The answer to that question may never be known for sure, but certainly the most fundamental characteristics of the USA today were deeply affected by, and are the result of, the outcome of that War. The railway – and the gauge disparities found in America in those early days – was an integral part of that.
For now though, our journey continues starting at the southern tip of South America, in Chile.
SOUTH AMERICA
CHILE
The railways of Chile, the first country we encounter after crossing the South
Pacific, are quite well integrated with those of Argentina, sharing the same gauges, and with many cross-border links. In fact, much of Chile’s railway system took its cues from what was happening in Argentina, to the point that I was tempted to treat the two countries together. In the end, I decided to keep them separate, at the risk of a bit of repetition here and there.
In Part 6, I was highly critical of Australia’s multiplicity of gauges – yet, if anything, Chile is worse! And, unlike Australia’s more recent initiatives, Chile is making little if any attempt to standardise everything to one gauge – it seems to be very much a case of lessez faire.
Chile is a very unusual country to say the least in terms of both its shape and its geography. It is well over 4000 km long, yet less than 200 km wide on average, with a climate ranging from the world’s driest desert in the north to (ant)arctic-like conditions in the south. Its eastern border with Argentina and Bolivia consists of the Andes mountains, which rise up soon after leaving the coastal strip, with typical traversable altitudes of over 4000 m (and peaks of over 6000 m). Its railways in some degree reflect this diversity – including a multiplicity of railway gauges (at least six).
In fact, Chile can be said to have two quite separate railway networks (not counting metros in the big cities, a number of disparate narrow gauge lines of varying gauges, and a bit of 1435 mm Standard gauge). In the north, metre-gauge is the most prevalent, while in the south, Indian gauge is the default gauge to be found on the main lines – 1676 mm (or 5 ft 6 in). Some refer to the broad gauge in Chile (and neighbouring Argentina, as well as Brazil) as being Iberian gauge – but that is incorrect. Iberian gauge is 1668 mm, or 8 mm less than Indian gauge, and was the compromise between 1672 mm once found in Spain and 1664 mm in Portugal.
The fact that the Indian and Iberian gauges are so similar is merely a coincidence – but a fortuitous one for Chile, as it turned out. It meant that Chile’s railway operator, EFE, was able to purchase some surplus rolling stock and motive power from RENFE in Spain, and use it without having to modify the gauge, as the 8 mm difference (4 mm if the stock was sufficiently old that it was still at the old 1672 mm gauge) was within tolerances.
The very first lines in Chile actually started out with 1435 mm Standard gauge, when the line between Caldera and Copiapó, in the northern half of the country, was built by American William Wheelwright, and commissioned in 1851. Some 80 km in length, it has been credited as being the first railway to operate in South America, a claim however which is disputed by both Guyana and Peru. This line, together with other pioneering lines in Chile, was later converted to metre-gauge, and then closed. But these lines were to remain as the only Standard gauge lines, until converted, in Chile for very many years.
Like in much of South America, the first significant main line railways in Chile were built by the British, to 1676 mm Indian gauge. In Chile, they invariably were built as an extension of railways in Argentina (see below under Argentina for the reasons why that country chose this gauge), in order to haul extracted minerals from the high Andean interior, especially in the Argentine interior, to the coastal ports in Chile – a much shorter journey than going to the eastern Argentinian coastal ports.
The British were responsible for most of Chile’s railway construction for all of the 19th century and into the first decade of the 20th century, although the French were also active in a couple of areas – the steelwork of the Central Station in Santiago, for example, bears a maker’s plaque: “Schneider, Le Creusot”. (Today, Le Creusot is perhaps more famous as a manufacturer of high quality steel and cast iron kitchen ware.)
Subsequent lines in Argentina were built to the same Indian gauge of 1676 mm. As these railways also extended into Chile, it became Chile’s gauge as well.
Main-line railways:
Today Chile has around 3700 km of 1676 mm gauge lines (down from over 6000 km 30 years ago, and with some of the broad gauge lines converted to metre-gauge), almost all of it south of Valparaiso, and with virtually no passenger services north of Santiago. Nearly half of the broad gauge network is electrified, the first electrification occurring as long ago as 1924, between Santiago and Valparaiso.
There are still many links with Argentina’s 1676 mm gauge railways, though some have closed. One 1676 mm gauge link with that country that was closed and that may be re-opened is the subject of a proposal to restore the South Trans-Andean Railway between Lonquimay in Chile and Zampala in Argentina. Rehabilitation is proceeding, and although it was hoped that the line would be opened sometime in 2012, current reports indicate that it has been abandoned once the initial 220 km totally within Chile was completed in 2006.
Another link between Chile and Argentina is the Transandine Railway between Valparaiso and Mendoza. As with all such links, it is to 1676 mm gauge.
Within Chile itself is a proposed high speed line between Santiago and Valparaiso, the country’s two largest cities. Whether this will be to Indian or Standard gauge is not decided upon as yet, although logically it would be built to the broad gauge. As other countries have found (notably Japan and Spain), there would almost certainly be a requirement for the high speed trains to access Chile’s conventional tracks.
Unlike with Spain, there would appear to be little need to link up this proposed line with Standard gauge lines in other countries – Spain’s high speed lines in contrast link up with Standard gauge high speed lines in France (see Part 2).
While the gauge of this proposed high-speed line is not yet settled, Chile does have some Standard gauge main-line track within its borders. A Standard gauge freight-only line connects with Peru’s railways, from Arica in Chile to Tacna in Peru. The line in Chile extends for approximately 40 km from the border, with no connection of course with any other line within Chile.
Narrow gauge railways:
Chile is also home to once-extensive narrow gauges in the south, those of 750 mm and the Decauville 600 mm gauge, as well as the extensive 1000 mm gauge lines in the north I mentioned previously. I have included the metre-gauge lines under this sub-heading, even though they are, strictly speaking, a fundamental part of Chile’s main-line network.
The reasons that these metric narrow gauges were chosen is primarily because these particular lines were built by German interests, and hence the first steam locomotives used came from mainly German manufacturers, such as Henschel – for whatever reason, the British had little influence here.
The 750 mm and 600 mm gauges saw very extensive networks of mostly industrial railways, but also some long distance freight and passenger lines. The 750 mm gauge lines alone stretched for over 1600 km. These lines reached into Argentina as well as Chile, and while most are now closed, proposals are in hand to rehabilitate and re-open some of them, and even extend them where justified, such as the 750 mm gauge line between Río Turbio and Puerto Natales (see map below).
As Chile has abundant coal, they will utilise reconditioned 750 mm gauge steam locomotives, some of which are the largest and most powerful to be built to this gauge, such as the type shown below.
The 600 mm Decauville gauge lines were to be found at the very southern tip of Chile. Also connecting with similar lines in Argentina, they were primarily used as industrial and mining railways, particularly in connection with the oilfields in the extreme south of Chile, although there was some passenger traffic as well.
As already mentioned, quite separate from both the broad gauge and the very narrow gauge railways in southern and central Chile, are the 1000 mm gauge lines in the north, with no connection between them and the broad and narrow gauge railways further south (except through Argentina).
One such railway is the Central Trans-Andean Railway – a mountainous 1000 mm gauge 100-km long link with Argentina. This line, connecting as it does with the broad gauge lines in both countries, and having been converted itself from the broad gauge to reduce costs, involves 1676/1000 mm breaks of gauge at either end!
The railway between Arica, on the north-west tip of Chile al
most on the border with Peru, and La Paz, in Bolivia, is one of the most famous of these 1000 mm gauge railways. Over 440 km in length, of which almost half is in Chile, it was built as a gesture made under the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Chile and Bolivia, following a war between these nations in 1879 (relations however are still poor between the two countries). Originally built to 762 mm gauge, it was converted to metre-gauge between 1913 and 1928.
Part adhesion and part rack railway, it reaches an altitude of nearly 4300 m, which was the highest reached by any railway anywhere until the Chinese built a Standard gauge line to Tibet (see Part 5). Passing by Lake Titicaca and the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu on the way, it is now partially restored after suffering extensive damage by flash floods in 2005 which forced its owners into bankruptcy. While the Bolivian section remains in poor condition (although operable at slow speed), the Chilean section is fully operational.
Also to metre-gauge are three other lines:
That between the coastal city of Iquique, a little south of Arica, and Pintados, over the mountains to the south-east. Running through very barren country, today it is essentially freight-only and used mostly for mining operations, although it does see the occasional autocarril, or railcar.
The line from Antofagasta to Uyuni, in Bolivia. This line was also converted to metre-gauge from 762 mm gauge. Today it is all but derelict.
The Tren a las Nubes into Argentina. This will be covered under that country (see below).
The sixth and final gauge to be found in Chile is the Cape gauge of 1067 mm. In 1882, two fairly short lines (by Chilean standards) were built, under the auspices of the Anglo-Chilean Nitrate and Railway Company. Financed, as the company’s name intimates, by business interests from London, it was built to the British Cape gauge of 3 ft 6 in, or 1067 mm.
The Americas Page 1
