Virtual Railfan Tour of Argentina 1994 - Patagonian Narrow Gauge.

The Superintendent said "Here is your train, where would you like to ride?"
I had said my goodbyes and got into the car at the restaurant after lunch. But to my surprise I was taken back to the station at El Maiten and brought to this train. I was dumbfounded.



"My train" at El Maiten
We were going south to Leleque.  I chose to ride the engine.  When I got up in the cab I was asked "Which seat do you want?  Driver or fireman?". It had been a long time since I had driven a steam locomotive on the main line and I decided discretion was the better part of virtue so I chose the left hand, fireman's seat. These engines are all oil fired so I had had plenty of experience with CPR 4-6-2 1201 in Ottawa.  The injectors were different but I soon got the hang of these.

With an eye on the color of the smoke from the stack, and the water level in the boiler I kept a sharp lookout ahead in this wide open country.

A feature of this north south line is the endless chain of the snow capped Andes to the east. These form a rain shadow making this area very dry.

At Leleque, No. 16 was uncoupled, turned on the wye and attached to the other end  for the return to El Maiten

I was shown these old rails which they claimed were Barlow rails. They were not used as running rails but were going to be used for other structural purposes.

I would have liked to have ridden back on the locomotive but felt I should spend some time with my wonderful hosts.  Their children came along as well and every one had a great time

They had lit the stove so there was an endless supply of mate.
We arrived back in Bariloche after dark. The journey back was with some difficulty. We hit a large rock which luckily only damaged a hub cap.
The next day, Sunday, was free in Bariloche before flying back to Buenos Aires in the evening.  I was due to fly back to Ottawa on the Monday but there was another surprise in store for me.






 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Railfan Tour of Switzerland - Wednesday - Zurich Hauptbahnhof Part One

Image
Zurich Hauptbahnhof  Paul has prepared some extensive notes and photos of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof.  This will be in several parts.  The busiest station in Switzerland is Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich HB) which is used primarily by the SBB. It has 26 tracks serving almost 3000 trains daily and it is one of the busiest stations in the world. It was built in the 1870s and is a main shopping destination as well as a transport hub. There are three levels for platforms and the "Shopville" shopping plaza.  The river Sihl river passes right through the station with platforms passing above and below the river. This shows the general layout of the station with the surrounding tram tracks shown in purple Tracks 3 to 18 are terminal tracks located at ground level, served by two side platforms and seven island platforms. These are used by long-distance trains from throughout Switzerland, and by international trains. Tracks 21 and 22 are underground terminal tracks, served by a sing...
Read more

Coming Home - Wrap Up - Sunday 15 Setember 2024

Image
This video, by Noel Wyler,  shows what we have just missed. Last Saturday (14 September) the Oensingen Balsthal  Railway organized an event to commemorate 60 years of the Re 4/4 locomotives. They brought together 24 of them and ran them as one train. Paul and I flew home on KLM from Schiphol Airport. We took a train from Den Haag directly to the airport. The trip back was marred by a couple with a young boy who was obviously teething. He cried almost continuously for the full six hours. I found I could tune him out when I dug deep into the KLM sound system and found a treasure trove of classical music. Bach violin concertos, Mozart piano concerto No. 23, Beethoven symphonies, Schuman etc. We survived the stupidities at the entrance of the Montreal airport and caught the KLM bus back to Ottawa where we arrived precisely on time. A good ending to a wonderful, tremendous, trip  
Read more

Travel Basel to Den Haag - Wednesday 11 September

Image
  A Dutch speciality - pancake with cheese, mushrooms and bacon. This was the only picture I took today - after we had finally arrived at Den Haag. We went early to the station at Basel  to check on our train to Dusseldorf only to find out it had been cancelled. A visit to the SBB ticket office revealed that the train hadn't actually been cancelled but was starting today from Karlsruhe. They found a connecting train leaving a little earlier which we took. This became progressively later and later so that it arrived at Karlsruhe just as the connection was about to pull out. A frantic dash across the platform and we were able to claim our seats. The journey to Dusseldorf was peculiar, There were periods when the train went fast (up to almost 200 kmph) and other periods when it dawdled. It progressively lost time except that it arrived at its final destination, Dusseldorf, eleven minutes early. (An injudicious use of recovery time in the schedule?) Dusseldorf gave us an opportuni...
Read more