The Locomotives

The Railway to Nowhere
The 75cm gauge Esquel Railway in Southern Argentina is the sole remnant of the grandiose and never completed railway network of Patagonia. What should have been a trunk route to the Magellan Strait petered out after two hundred miles in a remote sheep station in the Andes foothills. Even that took over twenty years to build, but what a railway.

The Weekly Train
This programme is a portrait of the weekly train on this highly scenic route down the edge of the pampa weaving in and out of the foothills of the Andes with frequent majestic views of South America's famous mountain range. The train with its complement of farmers, livestock, and a handful of tourists derails in a remote spot and is eventually rescued by two locomotives. Now with three engines, the train struggles on through a dramatic mountain sunset to the end of its journey.

The narrow gauge steam locomotives are virtual museum pieces, dating from 1922 and still maintained in good order in locomotive workshops installed in the middle of nowhere for the main line that never was.

Locomotive details:
2-8-2 Henschel, Germany, 1922
2-8-2 Baldwin, USA, 1922
0-6-0T Henschel, Germany, 1922

A Unique Portrait
Nick Lera's videography on this programme is of an exceptionally high standard. Much of the action is filmed on board the locomotives with detailed and dramatic close-ups of the mechanical parts in motion. These are intercut with landscape views of the train in its grand Andean setting, and sequences of the isolated communities it serves. This video is the perfect portrait of one of the world's remotest railways, and deserves a place in every enthusiast's collection.

Duration: 56 minutes

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Photographs copyright Richard Pelham