Incas del Peru - Current News

RIDING HIGH IN PERU

LIMA, Peru — It's not unusual to have a headache at 4,781 meters above sea level. It is unusual to be on a train at that altitude, however. Pills don't provide relief up here. Instead, my elixir came from savoring the carnival atmosphere and the miraculous scenery.

I was aboard the monthly Lima-to-Huancayo Ferrocarril Central Andino (FCCA), billed as the highest passenger train in the world. The railway slinks 336 kilometers through the central Andes Mountains of Peru and is easily one of the greatest engineering feats of the 19th century.

My journey started in Lima at a painless 100 meters above the sea. I was staring into a plate of Chinese fried rice and thinking, “I just have to get on that train.” It was 7 o'clock on a Friday evening and departure was in 12 hours! I ate hurriedly, then scurried to my hotel where I obtained a telephone number from guests John and Sheila, an amiable English couple, who already had tickets.

“I want to go too,” I declared breathlessly as I reached the hotel porch. “Who do I call?”

Forty minutes later,Luis 'Lucho' Hurtado, who looks like a shaman, was at the door with my US$30 return ticket. And just like that, I was booked for the world's highest train, forsaking my plane ticket to Ayacucho, also for the morning. The spur-of-the-moment trip, made in the first week of a two-month independent journey from Lima to Santiago, Chile via Bolivia, ultimately proved a favorite memory.

Under dawn's chilly blanket, the Britons and I shared a taxi to the deliciously refurbished Estacion Desamparados, built in 1912. The station's old-style design and yolk-yellow finish sent a romantic chill up my spine. Inside, the red and yellow train cars were cozied up to the platform.

I climbed aboard coach 1023 and nestled into seat 67. It was literally the last seat of the last carriage, next to the toilet, where a passenger locked herself in. With a jerk, and a thud from the lavatory, we were off precisely at 7am.

This was going to be a friendly ride. An aura of expectation filled the air. Everyone was chatting, swapping seats, and sharing snacks. John and Sheila were two carriages up the line curled up in conversa-tion and a green velvet booth. I remained there for the duration of the 12-hour journey.

“I love this train,” Lucho announced into the train's PA. He was hosting a radio-like talk show surrounded like a rock star by passengers from the world over. “I am so happy all of you are here today,” he confessed. I knew I was.

“This is much better than a plane ride,” I said as John, a science teacher, prepared his altimeter: A partially blown-up plastic bag. “There! That'll tell us how high we are,” he instructed. The filth and fray of Lima's outskirts felt like a descent, however. But the scenery soon changed — frequently and wildly. There were varying earth tones, mighty rivers, tree-less highlands, secret lagoons, and majestic peaks too numerous to count. In fact, in only 172 kilometers, the distance between Lima and La Galera, the highest point on the line, the train traverses six climatic zones at an average speed of 28 kph. It crosses 61 bridges, slinks through 65 tunnels, sways past 1,115 curves, and zigzags between 21 switchbacks (like a hiker zigzagging up a steep hillside).

From Lima, the route ambles along the Rio Rimac, initially follow-ing a valley before climbing steeply through gorges and ravines. The train hugs the tracks chiseled into the brown mountains. For much of the time, the view to one side is of a rock face while the other side affords views of the world, a long drop below. En route, location and altitude announcements kept passengers informed. “We are now passing Chosica, 802 meters above sea level ... The next station is Surco, 2,000 meters ... Casapalca, 4,200 meters.”

At Ticlio, the highest passenger station in the world at 4,758 meters (15,606 feet), we disembarked for a few minutes of leg stre-tching and deep breathing. What the station is needed for was not apparent. Other than beauty, I couldn't see a thing. Not even a tree.

For a few passengers, the altitude was lite-rally breath-taking. They remained aboard taking oxygen under a nurse's supervision. For others, coca tea assuaged their altitude sickness.
After the breathless photographic frenzy, we pressed on, passing through La Galera tunnel and the zenith of the rails. We celebrated in the dark knowing it was all down hill from there.
It was also time to eat. Nearly 1 o'clock, I'd been deferring lunch until after La Galera because, like John's now taut altimeter, I was bloated. Besides, drinking more and eating less is recommended for acclimatization. But the train staff came down the aisle carting plates of chicken, rice, and vegetables.
The beauty of lunch was outdone by the ugly of Oroya (3,735 met-ers), an industrial town known as the 'metallurgical capital of Peru'. The filth and ecological devastation stretched seemingly to infinity.
“Not a thing grows here,” said Lucho, as if anyone needed telling.
But life returned to the vistas by the time we reached Llocllapampa (3,464 meters) and the Rio Mantaro. From there, the train rumbled along a fertile valley, then descended on time into Huancayo station (3,260 meters). We alighted into evening's chill, warmed by the vigorous sounds of a local marching band which was on hand to greet us.
“I was born in this station,” said Lucho. “My father was a train worker. As a boy I used to go to the trains and get passengers for the hotels. That's how I learned English. When the train stopped running, I was determined this could not be for long. But even with an old frie-nd, a former mayor of Huancayo, now serving in Congress, this has not been an easy task.” For two days in Huancayo, Lucho was my tour guide, along with ten others in a shared van. He arranges day trips to nearby villages and nature spots in the Mantaro Valley, a better option than hanging around the dirt and din of Huancayo, a modern city of 300,000 souls with not much more on offer than its popular Sunday market. A Lima-Huancayo train was the brainchild of American entrepreneur and financier Henry Meiggs. He once boasted, “I can get a train wherever a llama can walk.” The line itself was designed by Polish engineer Ernest Malinowski. It was constructed between 1870-1908, principally for transporting copper and zinc from mountaintop mines and farm produce from the Mantaro Valley. The rails have been carrying freight, and passengers, ever since.

Travel writer Paul Theroux is one of the best-known globetrotters to have made the trip. He wrote about it in his 1979 book, "The Old Patagonian Express". Perhaps since then, the ride has become a must-do for train enthu-siasts and adventurers alike. But the line hasn't always been safe. Terrorists blew up the Mal Paso bridge near Jauja (3,552 meters) in 1991, suspending passenger travel (though not freight) for the next seven years. Suspended services sapped thousands of incomes. Lucho, an expert in Huancayo history, has been working tirelessly to change that. Even his mother participates. She's the boss at La Casa de la Abuela (The House of the Grandmother), a budget hotel where I stayed. The return trip to Lima was something of a downer (no pun intended). Many of the same people were aboard, though fewer passengers overall, Lucho included. (Many people take a seven-hour bus journey back instead.) Second time round, the scenery was equally impressive but somehow different without the festive spirit. Back near sea level, headache-free and respiring normally, the English couple and I commented to one another how good we felt. “Remarkable, isn't it,” noted Sheila, “what a little altitude can do?” Then we went for a Chinese dinner and I was back to where my train journey began.

http://http://www.kansaiscene.com/2005_04/html/travel.shtml

TIMES ON LINE

Title: I rode the Peruvian switchback with a bunch of trainspotters
Authors: Matthew Parris
Source: Times, The (United Kingdom); 04/09/2004
Accession Number: 7EH2639308665
Database: Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre
I rode the Peruvian switchback with a bunch of trainspotters

Section: Features, Comment, pg. 24
OBSESSION is not too strong a word to describe how railway enthusiasts feel about railways. "Enthusiasm" does not begin to do justice to a passion which, like all true passion, never asks itself the cold question: "What is this for?" For railway enthusiasts there are no balance sheets and only one bottom line: Heaven is a destination to be approached along an iron road. It was with such a group that I assembled one morning at dawn last week; and with such a destination, or something as close to it as a railway can touch. The railway from the Pacific at Lima in Peru, to Huancayo in the Andes, climbs farther, faster, higher, than any other in the world. This most unlikely of constructions, begun in the 19th century and finished in the 20th, rises from sea level to 15,688ft, and makes that climb in a morning: halfway to the top of Everest up a track no longer than a commute into London from the Home Counties. Stop me. There I go, sounding like a railway nutter. But there I was, happening to be in Lima on August 28, the very day appointed for one of just a handful of passenger excursions now permitted on what is without question the world's most remarkable railway. This could not be missed. The Ferrovias Central Andina once carried thousands, but as roads improved its prospects dwindled and by the end of the last century it was close to extinction. New private owners seem now to be putting the business back on its feet. Track and rolling stock are being renewed, but the company has only a marginal interest in passengers, transport of minerals from the mountains being its mainstay.

It has been left to an obsessive to charter and market these very occasional excursions. If the train ran (previous excursions had been cancelled by the FCA to the despair of the charterers), then Saturday, August 28, would be a red letter day for Peruvian trainspotters. Would it run? I had telephoned from the Peruvian Amazon to ask. I seemed to hear the lady at the station say Yes, buy your ticket at the metro. Doubly unlikely. You do not buy long-distance tickets at metro stations; and Lima does not have a metro. So when I asked my Lima hotel receptionist about the metro I was surprised to hear it was a giant supermarket. And there, among merchandise ranging from cheap clothes, meat and vegetables, mountaineering equipment, bridal gowns and hepatitis vaccinations I bought my ticket, one of the last six remaining, online. How Peru is changing. Saturday dawned. My taxi driver did not at first remember that there was a railway station -railways are dead or dying all over South America –but found it next to the presidential palace where the last President but three used to graze llamas in the ornamental gardens - an eye-catching initiative with which he could be personally associated. The station is built in Palladian style with a stone lion above the Portico and, beside the station clock, a carved maiden in bas relief, cradling a locomotive in her arms. The clock had stopped at 11.55, perhaps when the last scheduled service left. At its locked gates an enterprising Indian peasant wearing a rainbow hat was selling water, sticky lollipops and toilet paper. And in Lima's grey and misty dawn a little group of intrepid obsessives was gathering. They were led by Lucho, a long-haired Peruvian of fine, part-Indian features. But he is no hippy: with his tour company, Incas del Peru, he has worked tirelessly to badger the railway company into keeping the door open to passenger excursions. A practical obsessive, he is showing how railway mania and Andean adventure can mix. He wants regular excursions with stops for sightseeing in the little towns climbing the fertile valleys that line the dusty desert rock of the descending Andes with green. I think he will succeed. Tourist spectaculars are now the only future for passenger trains in South America. (If you are interested in going, the company's website is www.incasdelperu.org ) Comfortable in my carriage (painted red and yellow and made in Romania in 1982) I was chatting with Lucho when three mournful blasts on the big red and yellow diesel loco's whistle announced our departure. And at 7am prompt an engine and four carriages pulled away, heading gently uphill. Dogs barked. Surprised slum dwellers stared at this unusual sight – a passenger train - as we clickety - clacked past railside shrines towards the great grey walls of the Andes, rising into the cloud. However would we climb that?

We gathered speed. "I can build a railway," the engineering genius Ernest Malinowski, a Polish immigrant to Peru and the brain behind this line, once announced, "anywhere a llama can climb." The question "but why?" would not have occurred to such a mind. A crazy American, Henry Meiggs, escaping debts in his home country, won the contract to build it. He built it, but he ended in ruin. Now we were running alongside the gigantic gutter which on maps Appears as Lima's river. The mudbrick houses of the poorest clung hopefully to the steep, dusty and unstable foothills on either side, but in some cases with dubious prospects of success.

Some proudly flew red and white Peruvian flags. Curious, the patriotism of the downtrodden. Even in a slum the occasional dwelling announces its owner's dream of better things: a crude attempt at an ornate balcony, bright pink window frames, a whole wall clad in bathroom tiles, a sprig of dying bougainvillea or a struggling bush gallantly topiarised into an unpersuasive parrot. Breakfast was served. Outside, a roughly daubed "Prohibited to Dump Rubbish" marked the presence of each informal tip. But soon we left the Andean skirt down which Lima stinks and dribbles into the Pacific. Hazy sunshine then bright sunshine had pierced the cloud. A clear stream rushed by our carriage window. The lushness of the valley we were climbing ("27m per minute", declared our fact-packed printed guide) contrasted with the grim, bare rock and earth of the ridges of the Andes to either side. Little taximotos (scooter-drawn three wheelers, canvased over and bench seated) putt-putted up the road beside us. The carriages swayed. The diesel spat and roared. We passed a donkey so laden with cut grass that it might have been taken for a green-dyed yak.
There were flowering bushes. There were humming birds. But to the two leading carriages all this meant little. Their occupants had arrived at the station in gleaming coaches. They had their own guides bossing them as happily as they were happy to be bossed. They were German and American rail enthusiasts, in a group. The railway and rolling stock were all that really interested them. And pretty offensive, as a group, they were. What is it about railways which brings out the officious, the insolent, the mindless in their human friends? These people did not want the Peruvian music which had started to play on the carriage loud-speakers. They seemed to think Peru-all that brutal beauty and colour, all those mysterious black eyes and intriguing racial combinations - was just a backdrop to the camcorder holiday movies they were making about a train. They shouted abuse when anyone got in the way of their photographs, refusing to venture close to the subjects of their shots or far from their carriage simply because their guide had told them so.
When my companion and I walked up close to watch our loco being swivelled (by hand) on a turntable, the whole German-American group started yelling at us because we and some Peruvians were spoiling their picture. We all but dropped our pants to spoil it more completely. The loco-swivel was important. Twenty-one times on this line the train switches direction, usually (though not in this case) simply reversing so the engine driver at the back can see nothing, and a little motorised bogey runs ahead of the advancing rear carriage, to see the way clear. If you imagine zig-zags up the side of the mountain, but with each zig and zag extended into a dead end as long as a train, so that once the train has come to halt in its cul-de-sac, points can be thrown and the train, which has advanced up the zig, can now reverse up the zag then you have the gist of Malinowski's plan. It is called "switchback", and it works. But slowly. Soon you forget which end the engine is. From the top of a long series of switchbacks we could see the track far below, tiny and neat as a Hornby-Dublo. Crossing a skyscraper-high viaduct between mountain ridges, we saw on the road beneath us a ghastly lorry crash. We passed a freight train coming down, laden with ore, waiting in a siding (our line was single track) and passed some mine towns too, bleak, loveless places the world over but bleaker in those high, dry mountains and this thin and biting air. Jumpers and fleeces were taken down from the carriage racks and a nurse brought round oxygen for a couple who felt faint.

The service is routine. Breathless myself, I peered out as we emerged from a tunnel corkscrewed up for nearly a mile inside a mountain -and saw my first Peruvian trainspotter. He was with his son, both swathed in blankets, noting the numbers of the carriages on a grubby notepad. And, yes, he did have a Thermos.

Contribute to the debate comment@thetimes.co.uk
Copyright (C) The Times, 2004

Source: Times, The (United Kingdom), Sep 04, 2004
Item: 7EH2639308665

http://www.timesonline.co.uk

EISENBAHN-KURIER

The Highest Train in the World

On the way from Peru’s capital Lima to Huancayo, crosses the locomotive 1000 on the 24th of may with a tank wagon, Bartolome-Matucana situated in the amazing “Carrion overpass”, over the Verruga cliff.

After our first visit to the Peruvian Andes in the year 2000 (see globetrotter in E.K. 11-2001) Peru again became our trip goal in May and June 2003. A message shook my travel guides and I, the central rails, the most spectacular track of the entire Andes was ready to be used with a passenger train after years of disuse. In August and November 2002 began the first journeys with passenger trains from Lima to La Oroya and Huancayo since the nineties, when the journeys were postponed because of the terrorist threat. Since that time, the only transport taking place on this unique track was cargo transport, while all the passenger transport was taking place on the road. The first trips were taking place in 2002 and went so well, that for 2003 there were six trips on the time-table. Until that time the track only gave the people of Lima the possibility for an excursion on Sundays from Lima (150 m. high) to San Bartolome (1513 m. high). After weeks of preparation and lots of communication with different departments of the private FCCA ( FerroCarril Central Andino S.A.), the time had finally come, with a translator and a local taxi driver we are standing on the rail depot in Chosica at the crack of dawn.

Thursday 22 may 2003 at the Chosica depot we shall receive information about the cargo transport over the central rail, because we – before crossing the Andean mountains- want to photograph the cargo transport on the first part of the route around Lima. Chosica ( 859 m.) is the first big train station on the route in the Andes, 54 km. from Lima, isolated in a small valley. At first we had to wait. The security personnel from the heavily guarded train station was indeed informed about our visit, but the station chief hadn’t arrived yet to get permission from higher up. In Peru it’s just like that, it isn’t that easy. After two hours of waiting- in the meantime the sun had set- the chief greeted us with surprising news, two persons are allowed to ride along with the next good train towards Huancayo, from Chosica to San Bartolome. “But, now what…” actually we wanted to know the times of the good transport and not to immediately ride along on the locomotive. So it happened that Horst Helmle the train and Horst Kraft and I followed the train per PkW. At the maximum speed of 50 km. Per hour it was easy to reach San Bartolome. That’s where the first of 18 turntables of the central railway is located, here; the locomotives are being turned on a turning disk to cross the Cordeliers with the best possible power. Almost simultaneous with the good train we arrive on the station, where another good train is waiting readily to go to Lima, to reach the capital after the crossing, 76 km. later. We are looking for Horst Helmle on the locomotive, but are unable to find him, where can he be? We decide to go back to Chosica, on the way we catch up with the train going downwards. When it stops in a small station we can also see a second train going upwards and from the engineer booth our missing friend greets us cheerfully. The engineer booth from the first train wasn’t tidy enough, so they moved the German guest to the second, following locomotive.
After all these adventures we receive more good news about the track, we are a reasonable distance from the 2389 m. high city of Matucana, over 100 km. from Lima. The highlight of this part of the track is the 218 m. long steel bridge named “Carrion” over the Verruca gap. The climb to the photo point, by foot, demands a lot from our lungs. This is the price for a nice picture- and on the pictures from the passing trains from san Bartolome, no one will see how out of breath we were.

Friday 23rd of may We are in Lima in front of the tower of Lima’s station, Desamparados. With us are 90 more travelers waiting, (mostly tourists) to be let in to the - because of the lower situated presidential palace, - strictly guarded train station. We meet up with Lucho Hurtado, a Peruvian railway friend, who will accompany us on our journey on the highest train in the world. With a 2 hour delay, we leave Lima at 9 am. Instead of a clean passenger train, all of a sudden we are riding in a GmP, after which both wagons were simply attached to the susposed cargo train, efficiency principally goes before exclusiveness. The heavy shaking makes us doubt our decision to endure this 13 hours. The train’s horn is ready to warn crossing people and cars. The journey goes trough the povertystricken district of the 8 million metropole, when we’ve left the chaos of Lima behind us, the journey becomes a lot more bearable.
In Chosica is a short stop, which gives us a good view. Unfortunately the only steam locomotive is somewhat un-photogenic placed in between the other trains. In 1837 Beyer Peacock built 1’E Schlepptenderlocomotief nr. 206 and it is still used for charter rides, but it is in such a bad state that for extra trains the diesel power is often very necessary. Unfortunately it is the investigations and the money that is lacking. After passing the picturesque villages Matucana, Chicla and San Mateo, we cross the Infiernillo bridge. This is a short bridge and only one of the 67 bridges on the track between Lima-Oroya, but it is 3300 meter high and so the highest railway bridge in the world. Besides bridges, we also cross 65 tunnels. The passenger wagons are on the end of the train on this track. An opened wagon door and some flat wagons in between the passenger wagons and the locomotive, gives us some good photo opportunities from the impressive mountain world. This journey is a technical miracle, designed by the American Henry Meiggs (1811-1877). Meiggs could, while building the railway from Lima to La Oroya not make use of the regular turn tunnels to overcome the differences in heights, because of the small ravines and the breakable rock. Therefore he used a technique that had been used in 1863 by the build of the railway Bombay- Poona in India and created the special characteristic of the Peruvian railway, the turntables.
The breaks scream and we make our 3rd stop. Soon the zigzags begin to climb through the mountains. There’s a statuesque rail by steep ravines through the high mountains of the Peruvian Andes. Until arriving into the station of Ticlio /4758 m.), we are going at 16 meters per minute. To prevent ourselves from getting the altitude sickness “soroche” we’ve been drinking coca tea and mineral water without stopping and as an extra help we’ve been chewing on blood thinning tablets. For emergency cases there is a nurse on board. The oxygen comes in handy for the sleeping kids, to make breathing easier with the help of an oxygen mask. In the turntable of Chicla (3734 m) there is even a train crossing taking place. Our upward going GmP puts half of the train on a side track, for this turn, drives onto the turntable and drives into an, in the mountain drilled tunnel. When the train has reached the end of the tunnel the rail worker can change the rails for the train that goes downwards. This train passes part of the train on the side track and goes in opposite direction downwards. In the meantime, our train is put back together. The locomotive is now on the end of the longer rails, where the good train used to be and pushes us in the back to Saltacuna. Ticlio has been reached. 157 km. from Lima Desamparados, begins the last part of our adventurous journey. As signed guests we enjoy the journey through the 1176, 85 m. long tunnel from Ticlio to Galera from the engineer stand. In the middle of the tunnel, we reach, 4784 m. above sea level, the highest point of the Peruvian central railroad. Directly after the tunnel, we enter the station of Galera. This station at 4781 m. is the highest station in the world, only a piece of rails from Ticlio-La Cima lies a bit higher. A fascinating evening atmosphere hangs over the station, some side tracks are lying in the last sunlight of the day. We direct the engineer to the last sunlight and leave the locomotive to capture this beautiful scene on camera. Half anaesthetized and floating because of the high altitude we climb the hill to take some really nice pictures. Our heart is racing and our breathing equals that of a 400m. runner after reaching the finish. Madness, a dream coming true! This exclusive photo shoot was made possible by the American Henry Posner, manager of the private FCCA, after a long period of negotiating, thank you very much! A unique evening atmosphere surrounds the rails and the mountains on our journey to the next ig ag, towards Yauli- tal. In complete darkness we reach the mine city La Oroya. The city of about 50.000 people, has a copper and lead supply and is because of that Peru’s biggest mountain home depot. Zink, coal and silex are the most important goods for the rails. Daily and morefrequently, there are cargo trains in the area of Lima - La Oroya - Huancayo. Based on the strong differences in height and the turntables, the maximum loading is limited to 270 t per train. After another three hours ride, our “tourist train” reaches it’s destination in Huancayo on an altitude of 3271 m.

Saturday 24 may 2003 after a short night; we ride very early in a taxi with our friend Lucho Hurtado to our first photo point, on the 914 mm. small rail track from Huancayo-Huancavelica. Recently this belongs to ENAFER, the Peruvian state railways. This railway can, based on the thrifty good transport, not be sold or leased to private companies like the other former state railways. The lucrative tourist shop is missing out on passenger transport, because only the Peruvian farmer uses the train connection, even though the rails are the only connection, for the isolated villages, between Huancayo and Izcuchaca and the outside world.
A daily train makes it possible for farmers to come to Huancayo and sell their goods in the market. In the weekends there is an extra train running. The trains usually function as a “mixto” (GmP) and in isolated stations they mostly serve as good trains. As a memento, there are two diesel locomotives to be used by the whole business. In the first morning light (this equals the train of 6.30 am in the 3657 m. high Huancavelica) we take our first pictures. One hour later, in the meantime we’ve left a tour over a bumpy road behind us; we meet our train in a small valley in front of Izcuchaca for the second time. In this beautiful bit of nature, we later wait for our return to Huancayo. We send our taxi driver back alone, because we’ll take the train to get back. On the evening train to Huancayo, we’re the only foreigners. In the train, the local people are singing, making music and drinking their homemade “chicha” (corn beer). The kids surround us, hoping to sell some candy to us. When it becomes dark, there’s just a flashlight enlightening the scene. There’s no light in the train, the seats no longer have pillows and on the floor are different liquids with different scents. In the hallway are big bags filled with vegetables and fruit (garlic). The unforgettable ride ends in Huancayo, where the farmers sleep on the street wrapped in blankets on top of their bags, dreaming of big sells and lots of customers. We spend the night with our friend, Lucho Hurtado (travel companion, hotelier and railway friend) with a good beer and music to discuss our common hobby, the railway.

http://www.eisenbahn-kurier.de