International Railroad Discussion > Chile Santiago - Temuco passenger service

Just curious, is anyone here familiar with the railroads down in Chile? I was just looking at some recent vids (basically out of curiosity regarding the fastest trains in South America) and while my Spanish isn't great, I've gathered that Santiago - Temuco passenger service was just reinstated but apparently with very ancient looking electric locomotives being used. I know a few years back there were newer Spanish electrics in the fleet. Anyone know what happened to those?

No passenger service south of Chillan, where the electrification now ends. The Temuco train you saw was a weekend 'vintage' experience the EFE runs a few times during the summer. The final trip is this Friday with return Sunday. Overnight trains...all coach. They use restored E40 Italian electric to the end of wire and GE shovel nose diesels from Chillan to Temuco. A couple of trips have used the diesels over the entire route.

The Spanish trainsets are stored out of use and no plans to use again, other than on the seasonal vintage trains. And the big electric locomotives that came with the trains are not used at all. Also there in no longer catenary south of Chillan. There's simply no market for regular passenger trains all the way from Santiago to Temuco, given a good tollway with cheap bus fares, not to mention sometimes cheaper airfares to the new Temuco airport. This has nothing to do with politics, it's simply an economic consideration.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/15 10:32 by masterphots.

Thanks, well, that explains it. Sorry to hear that the closest thing South America had to high speed rail couldn't even make a go of it. Maybe in a century or two Latin America will be tied together by modern transportation infrastructure, but it certainly doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/15 10:27 by hsr_fan.

hsr_fan Wrote:
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> Thanks, well, that explains it. Sorry to hear
> that the closest thing South America had to high
> speed rail couldn't even make a go of it. Maybe
> in a century or two Latin America will be tied
> together by modern transportation infrastructure,
> but it certainly doesn't seem to be happening
> anytime soon.

Nothing high speed about the former Temuco service. The roughly 470 mile route was carded at eleven hours (overnight operation) and now and then it actually arrived on schedule. Some upgrades of track at the north end of the line got it down to a nine hour schedule the last year of operation. But this was compared to about 7 hours by express bus, 6 by car and 2 by air. And most Chileans thought the rail fare was too high, as compared to the bus (it wasn't imho). So it ended up a tourist operation for the most part. btw, it had car carriers which friends of ours used and loved it. Sleeping car and no boring drive down Ruta 5 to where all the good scenery begins. Interestingly, these summer nostaglia trips are selling out, despite an overnight trip in chair cars only and a diner in the sense it has tables and they provide microwaved fare. Most Chileans bring their own provisions anyway, mostly to save money. This season the train had two car carriers which were pretty much full. Tomorrow (Feb 27) is the last trip and will be interesting to see what the consist is. Will post some photos as it's leaving.

And with Chile being isolated by the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west, 2600 miles long and about 100 miles wide, coupled with a population of about 17 million (of which 7 million live in greater Santiago) and a falling birth rate, there will never be a population base to support passenger rail outside of the big cities. And there we have quite efficient EMU commuter trains, not to mention bus service to everywhere.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/15 10:28 by masterphots.

I hope to visit that part of the world one of these days. I'd love to see the Americas tied together with modern rail infrastructure, but alas, it's not gonna happen in this lifetime. But heck, one can take a train from the north of Scotland all the way to Vladivostok or Beijing, so it's not entirely impossible. I wish the political, social, and economic climate allowed for that type of thing in Latin America.

masterphots Wrote:
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> No passenger service south of Chillan, where the
> electrification now ends. The Temuco train you
> saw was a weekend 'vintage' experience the EFE
> runs a few times during the summer. The final
> trip is this Friday with return Sunday. Overnight
> trains...all coach. They use restored E40 Italian
> electric to the end of wire and GE shovel nose
> diesels from Chillan to Temuco. A couple of trips
> have used the diesels over the entire route.

Found this on Youtube -

Imágenes a bordo del tren nocturno Santiago-Temuco el 16/01/2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZjuJwkNMtU



>
> The Spanish trainsets are stored out of use and no
> plans to use again. Not to mention no catenary
> south of Chillan. There's no market for regular
> passenger trains all the way from Santiago to
> Temuco, given a good tollway with cheap bus fares,
> not to mention sometimes cheaper airfares to the
> new Temuco airport.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/15 01:50 by 3rd_Raton.

South America suffers from several problems to unified train service between countries.

1. The most important is gauge. Only Chile and Argentina have Broad gauge 5 ft 6 in. The only connecting railroads without passenger service is two meter gauge lines in Northern Chile to Argentina and Bolivia.

2. Politics: The War of Pacific created a century long distrust of Chile with Peru and Bolivia.

3. Management of the railroads by former Government agencies have left the systems in most countries playing catch up. Trackage is out of service over much of the Andes and in Uruguay and the entire rail system in Paraguay has been removed. Both of these countries have or had standard gauge.

In other words, The Governments are not committed to upgrades to rail networks and dumped them onto private concessionaires that must do all the maintenance and marketing to keep service going. In addition most of Peru is standard gauge and does not connect to any other country.

Dale Brown

And because these governments are WAY behind on economic development, their economics are poor and their people are poor. Railroad systems that are nourished by the government (but not operated by the gov't.) spur economic development.

I think there's another reason why international rail links are poor and that's density of population and geography. There are vast distances between the east and west coasts of the continent, much of which is uninhabited or uninhabitable - the Amazon rain forest, Atacama Desert, Pantanal swamp and the Andes are all physical reasons why railways are few and far between.

I think calling them poor and their governments poor is a bit underhanded. Latin America may have once been a basket case, but Brazil, Colombia and Chile are very wealthy. They have just chosen, due to their geography to invest heavily in road and air, and less so on rail.

Carondelet Wrote:
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> but Brazil, Colombia and
> Chile are very wealthy. They have just chosen, due
> to their geography to invest heavily in road and
> air, and less so on rail.

But are they well governed? Judging by the growing scandal surrounding Brasil's state oil company I would suggest that may not always be the case. Chile seems to my eyes as well run as any democracy, Colombia I just don't know, but bearing in mind it's troubled history there are probably questions about governance.

You could find 30 US scandals as big as Pertrobras was in Brazil. Colombia had a past, but that is a long long time ago. Today it is safe, growing and vibrant.

Most railroads in Peru, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil have been privatized. Colombia's 3ft narrow gauge system is heavily used by private operators on the routes to the coal mines on the Northern System. The rest of the system is sitting idle or sees little service. However Argentina seems to have the greatest problems of marketing and operations. The vast meter gauge network that connects from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Antofagosta, Chile is the only international route that still operates with connections to FCAB to Bolivia. Brazil connects to Bolivia's Eastern Meter Gauge system. Again all of these routes are underused and do not generate the volume of traffic that could be developed. Much has to do with the Politics of Argentina and the labor union that controls Belgrano Carga the operator of the Argentine C-14 route to Chile.

Ecuador's rebuild does not count as it primarily for tourism. Uruguay has miles of idle lines due to lack of traffic.

Dale Brown

Chile is fine, stable, well run government, etc. Far better than the present state of the U. S. Congress these days. Due to low population and the geography of the country there never has been and never will be any serious investment in passenger trains. As soon as roads became paved, bus service killed most of what service there was in the south. The north never had any passenger service to speak of. Today, with superb roads, frequent and cheap bus and air service, come on...

An example is the rail connection to Bolivia, which crosses the border at about 12,500 feet. The newly paved road gets one from Calama to said border in a couple of hours (120 miles). Even a short freight train, with three units, takes 4-6 hours slogging up the mountain. Spectacular but who´s gonna take that? And once in Bolivia you´re miles from anything other than a very high desert miles from anything.

Plus, the country likes to be isolated and no congress here would ever advocate, much less approve, any really good rail link to Argentina, Peru or Bolivia. Kinda like the British resisting the rail tunnel to the continent for so long. Probably an academic argument these days with F16s (of which Chile has the lastest and best versions), missles and the like but old habits.....



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/15 18:53 by masterphots.

Carondelet Wrote:
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> You could find 30 US scandals as big as Pertrobras
> was in Brazil. Colombia had a past, but that is a
> long long time ago. Today it is safe, growing and
> vibrant.

Re scandals, see Senator Menendez (D-NJ) currently underway.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/15 00:03 by masterphots.