PeruTren

Southern Railroad of Peru (operating)

This is the largest of all the railroads that have been built and that still operate in Peru. Meiggs started it. It is 1.435 gauge and 940km long. It begins at the port of Mollendo, climbs to Arequipa, and then proceeds to Juliaca, where it forks into a branch towards Puno on Lake Titicaca and another to the city of Cuzco. The highest point is reached at Crucero alto y La Raya. At present Peru Rail operates it. This railroad opened with the section Mollendo-Arequipa on 1 January 1871 where construction was started a year before. Subsequently the section Arequipa-Puno was completed and was brought into service in January 1874. Peruvians and Bolivian workers were employed on the job. The cost of this section was 33 million soles. The cost of the section Mollendo-Arequipa had been a million eight hundred thousand soles. The section Juliaca-Cuzco cost 25 million soles and was started in 1872 but was halted in 1875 by economic difficulties. In 1890, after fifteen years of inactivity due to the war and other causes, the Grace Contract was signed, and the Peruvian Corporation restarted the construction to Cuzco. In 1892 it opened to Maranganí and in 1894 to Sicuani. It reached Cuzco in 1908. It was transferred to the Peruvian Corporation in 1928. Further information on request

Ilo-Moquegua Railroad (closed)

The construction of this railroad was finished in 1873 under Meiggs and barely 7 years later, in 1880; the Chilean army destroyed it completely, after utilizing it to get to Moquegua city and demolishing it. The Presidents Iglesias in 1884, Cáceres in 1886 and 1889 and López of Romaña in 1899 tried to reconstruct it using private capital but they did not find anyone interested. Only in 1907, 27 years later, did the State rebuild it and it began to operate in 1909. It was 98 km long of 1.435m gauge. The line served the commerce and the developing mining activities of the area. In 1964 it stopped operating due to lack of traffic. Some of its material was transferred to the Tacna-Arica railroad. Its trackbed can still be seen and also the station at Hospicio, approximately in the middle of its route. This railroad should have been administered by the Peruvian Corporation under its contract with the government of 1911, but this never was done, and it was always in the hands of the State. Its lack of profits would explain this disinterest.

Southern Peru Railroad (operating)

The most modern railroad in Peru was built to serve the needs of a gigantic mining business. It unites Ilo, including the foundry and the copper refinery, with the mines of Toquepala and Cuajone, and connecting eventually with the ore deposits at Quellaveco. It utilizes the standard gauge of 1.435 and is 240 km long, with 5 tunnels, one of which is of 8 km, being the sixth largest in the world. Its track and rolling stock are the most modern and suitable for that type of activity.

Cuzco- Santa Ana-Quillabamba (operating)

This is one of best-known railroads in the country. It is 110 km long, of the narrow 0.914 gauge, and connects Cuzco with Machu Picchu and other towns and villages along the line, which is an important route and very profitable. In 1927 it was transferred to the Peruvian Corporation and in 1931 it returned to the control of the State. Peru Rail that has made a series of improvements to the service now operates it. However an avalanche of clay destroyed the part of the line that goes to Quillabamba opened in 1978, which now has to be reconstructed. The section to Quillabamba has not been privatized yet. It was opened in 1914 and opened in 1925 to Santa Ana. It has a branch of 13 km, from Huayllabamba to Pachar that is at present disused.

Matarani-La Joya (operating)

This line is 62 km long of 1.435 gauge, built between 1947 and 1950 by the State to shorten the line to the coast. It forms part of the Southern Railroad that starts in Matarani and Mollendo. It was operated temporarily by the Peruvian Corporation.

Tacna-Arica Railroad (operating)

This railroad holds various records – it is the only international one that we have and the oldest one still operating, as it was the second to be built in 1856 when Arica was Peruvian and governed by Ramón Castilla. It is the only railroad that is partially in another country. Is the most historic one of all for the part it played during the war against Chile, and finally it is one of the two lines that still belong to the State. It is true to say that this line is more a national monument than a railroad. Although its use is very limited it does not seem that it is going to be either abandoned or privatised. Enafer administers it since 2000, in which year there was a landslide and it does not have any traffic on the Arica side. It is 62 km long and has 1.435 gauge. Its building was authorized in 1851 and its construction was undertaken by José Hegan. The train service was started in 1856 and it was given a concession for 99 years. Upon occupation by the Chileans the railroad was in the hands of the Arica & Tacna Railway Co, an English concern. The Chileans were not able either to touch or to expropriate it, by express agreement included in the Ancón Treaty. From 1942 upon reverting to the Peruvian State the railroad remained the absolute property of the State. In 1944 the Arica to Tacna Railway Co. was liquidated. By then Tacna had returned to Peru and the Chilean section of the railroad on the Arica side also remained Peruvian property. In 1869 President Balta ordered studies to be done for its extension to La Paz, Bolivia but it was never was carried out. If such a line had been constructed it would have helped during the war with the transportation of troops.

Tambo del Sol-Ucayali Railroad (unfinished)

The great project of 1887 to unite the jungle area of Perú to the remainder of the country has in this railroad its greatest expression. A contract was signed in 1907, Law 718, and was modified in 1912, Law 1563, but the work was not started. A new contract in 1927 revived the idea. Up to 1930 80 km was built out of a total of 580 as narrow gauge. 6.5 million soles were invested by then. In 1949 it was converted to standard gauge but in 1957 work was finally stopped. Tambo del Sol is near Cerro de Pasco.

Railway Museum

In Tacna, in the station of the line to Arica, on the corner of 2 de Mayo and Albarracín, the Museum Railways of Peru operates. It has a collection of valuables items belonged to the various railways of the country. The most important one is the locomotive number three with its tender belonging to the Tacna-Arica Railway that was used for the movements of troops to the port during the war against Chile. The locomotive number 3, which arrived at Tacna in 1875, is currently at display on a park and it is in an excellent operating condition, and utilizes coal as fuel. There exists also a railcar of luxurious finish in which Bolognesi, Inclán and other Heros were transported.

Other railroads

In the annual statistics of the old Department for the Promotion and Public Works in 1966 appear, besides some of those already mentioned, the following railroads; the information given is Department and (where known) gauge; length; dates of operation.

1 Hacienda Laredo-Menochuco (Trujillo) 0.914 gauge
2. Shelby-San José of Huarón (Pasco) 0.750m; 51km; 1896/1966
3. Port Chicama-Licapa (La Libertad) 0.914m; 31km; 1898/?
4. Hacienda Pampa Blanca (Arequipa) 0.750m; 20 km; 1924/?
5. Hacienda Cartavio (La Libertad) 0.914m; 13km; 1906/?
6. Vítor-Sotillo (Arequipa) 1.435m; 14km; 1905/1950
7. Estate Chucarapi (Arequipa) 0.60m; 43 km; 1912/?
8. Cailloma mining railroad 0.6 m; 12km; 1899/1931?

Railroads of Tarapacá

In the old Peruvian department of Tarapacá there existed, until it passed to the control of Chile, three railroads built by the Peruvian State and dedicated exclusively to the transportation of nitrate or sulphur in its natural state from the interior towards the sea. These were:

1. Pisagua-Sal de Obispo-Agua Santa, 80 km long and of 1.435 m gauge, built between 1870 and 1876 by Ramón Montero and brothers, authorized in 1869.

2. Iquique-Pozo Almonte-La Noria, 113 km long also of 1.435 gauge also built between 1870 and 1876 by Ramón Montero, authorized in 1868. A concession was given by Castilla in 1860 to Federico Pezet and José M. Coast, but was not taken up. In the atlas of Peru by Mariano Felipe Paz Soldán in 1865, on a map of Iquique, this planned line appears. In 1871 the Montero family was authorized, without achieving it, to unite this railroad with the previous one and to extend it to the Bolivian border.

3. Patillos-Lagunas, 85 km long and 0.75 m gauge, granted also to the Montero’s, but built by the Sociedad Salitrera Esperanza. It functioned between 1872 and 1877, when it was abandoned without being finished (it was planned to be 110 km long) and due to a tidal wave that destroyed Patillos as well as legal problems.

In 1874 the Iquique and Pisagua lines were transferred to the FFCC Salitrero of Peru, with Montero as associates. During the campaign of Tarapacá the Peruvian army started the job of connecting the lines without achieving it.