International Railroad Discussion > Chile: Copper concentrate train on the old Argentina li

On 8 December I caught this train near the Saladillo copper mine, which lies just off the main route between Chile and Argentina. I'm assuming the odd looking containers the train is hauling contain copper concentrate, but I'm afraid I don't have any details. I wish I could tell you more about the locomotive too.

The narrow gauge railway used to run between the Chilean town of Los Andes (some 50 miles north of Santiago) and Mendoza in Argentina. My understanding is that international train service ceased some time in the 1980s. Now there is a good two lane road and road tunnel under the Christo Redentor pass. The climb to the Chilean tunnel entrance, which lies at an altitude of some 10,500 ft, involves a series of 32 hairpin bends. It's an impressive sight to watch a string of long 18 wheeler trucks negotiate these sharp curves.

Truck traffic volume and congestion is such that the construction of a 30 mile long railway tunnel through the mountains at a much lower altitude is under consideration.

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Guessing this line was electrified at one point?

Info/photos on this line has been posted many times but rather try and find it and give you a reference here's a quick summary. The line is indeed a remnant of the line to Mendoza. It is meter gauge and now only exists to haul copper concentrate in the tubs from the Codelco Andes Division mine a bit north of Rio Blanco to Los Andes, about 18 miles. The line was electrified on the Chilean side with rack sections up near the summit. Around the Portillo ski resort, which is on the border between the two countries there are remnants of the rack and also some dangling overhead wire in a few spots. In steam days, Kitson Meyer articulateds were used on both sides of the border, well into the 1970s. Two Kitsons from this line exist in Chile, one in the railroad museum in Santiago and another in the shed at Los Andes. The latter could be returned to service but like all things steam, just bring money. The winter of 1984 saw a huge avalanche that destroyed enough right of way to give an excuse to abandon the line. Only the segment needed to service the copper mine was maintained.

In Chile, electric locomotive hauled trains, as well as diesel railcars, were used for passenger service up to the end. The Kitson Meyer steam engines hauled freight, alongside GE shovel nose diesels, until the early 1970s, when the diesels took over all freight service.

There has been talk for years of drilling a tunnel under the Andes but with all things involving Argentina, it has never gotten beyond the consulting report stage. The road has been greatly improved very recently but it is still a slog, not to mention dealing with delays at the border crossing, again thanks to the Argentina custom service. The highway tunnel at the summit is routinely closed at times during winter months due to snow and ice conditions. Usually it is not open from midnight to early morning, as the border customs and passport controls close.

The Fepasa operation hauls the copper concentrate from the mine to a transfer yard in Los Andes where the tubs are lifted by gantry crane onto wide gauge (5'6") flat cars. They are than transported about 80 miles to the smelter on the coast at Ventanas. You were lucky to get one of the two Alco RSD35 diesels on the train you saw. Usually one of two GE U12Bs are in line haul service, with the two Alcos confined to switching the transfer yard in Los Andes.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/14 11:28 by masterphots.

masterphots: Thanks for so much interesting information. I was only vaguely aware of this extensive history.

A few details to add to masterphots' excellent summary: the summit tunnel was originally rail-only, and the Chilean electrification extended all the way through the tunnel to Las Cuevas, on the Argentine side; at this point, the electric locomotives were exchanged for Kitson-Meyer steam locomotives (2-8-0+0-8-2Ts, IIRC, with the "front" engine working on rack and adhesion and the rear working adhesion only) as far as Los Polvorines, where the rack section ended. In about 1952, the floor of the tunel was blacktopped to allow highway vehicles to pass through. It seems to me -- although I'm open to correction on this point, as I was never able to travel through the tunnel -- that the tunnel section can only accommodate one-way road traffic, so an alternating one-way flow pattern is used (a specific number of vehicles eastbound, then a similar number westbound).

In January 1953, at the age of 16, I spent about 6 weeks in Mendoza city with my family, as my father was sent there for work; my mother, sister and I had a very nice vacation while my poor Dad had to work! However, we did manage to get in some sightseeing, and it was on one of these trips that we went to the "Cristo Redentor" statue that marks the Argentine-Chilean border, almost directly above (but 3,000 ft. higher) the village of Las Cuevas and the railroad tunnel entrance. On the way up, our tour bus (a 14-passenger bus built on a 1937 Chevrolet light truck chassis!) passed an eastbound (downgrade) train hauled by a Kitson-Meyer, and in Las Cuevas we saw one of the Chilean electric locomotives (which had probably brought through the tunnel the train we had just seen). Unfortunately, we were not able to take any pictures, because under the Peron regime at the time taking photos of railroad subjects was frowned upon, and also decent film was very hard to obtain, and very high-priced to boot; so on that whole vacation, my father was only able to take about 3 rolls of 120-size B & W film -- 24 pictures! So, sorry, no pictures, just my memories, but I do remember being told that the tunnel had just been blacktopped the previous year, and the traffic patterns were still being worked out.

Roger Lewis (airbrakegeezer)

>>> the floor of the tunel was blacktopped to allow highway vehicles to pass through.

"Blacktopped" is perhaps an exageration. I drove through the tunnel on several occasions in the mid 1970s. The surface was potholed, muddy and rough and here were numerous springs in the roof. The tunnel was barely passable in a small sedan car. I had the misfortune to have a flat tyre on one occasion in the middle of the tunnel and all the cars behind me had to wait while I changed the tyre. I can confirm the tunnel was narrow and single lane. Sometimes one had to wait at the tunnel entrance an hour or so for vehicles in the other direction to clear.

Roger, thanks for the additional info. I've never ventured past Portillo and when I go to Mendoza I ride something called an A320. LOL I don't know if the tunnel is two lane now or not but I would guess it is given the amount of traffic up there. It's still hit and miss at the border though; we've had friends sit as long as 6 hours waiting to be processed by the Argies and the Chileans do the same thing to the Argentine truckers. Until the road was repaved and improved over the past couple of years, it was literally crumbling down the mountain, along with the snowsheds on the switchbacks. Now it's in good shape but how long that will list with the overloaded trucks who knows. It's a neat road though, the way it snakes up the mountain. btw, there's a good French restaurant just outside of Los Andes off the main highway that used Transandine snowshed timbers for the main beams in the dining rooms. When it first opened one of the waiters, now deceased, was a former conductor on the railway.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/14 05:40 by masterphots.

I may have posted these before, but here are some pictures of the transload operation where they transfer the containers from narrow to broad gauge.

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