The phrase ‘Fairlies at War’ might perhaps make you think of those miniature Pechot-Bourdon machines trundling around trench railway tracks in Flanders or at Verdun. However, there had been an earlier and faster-moving conflict on the other side of the world when much larger ‘double engines’ played a significant role. A good deal of new information on the topic has come to light in recent months, but first you might appreciate a reminder of the railway context and maybe something to supplement your no-doubt-limited knowledge of nineteenth century Chilean politics…
The Nitrate Railways
During the late 1860s don Ramón Montero and his three brothers had commenced constructing standard gauge railways in Peru's Tarapacá province in order to facilitate the export of the valuable sodium nitrate found there. This was in demand worldwide as fertiliser, and also to make explosives. The eventual 450 mile (approx. 750 km.) network comprised an inland north-south route along the gently graded nitrate pampa, and with a multitude of branches to dozens of individual nitrate processing plants, known as oficinas. Egress to the coast was by two routes west to the ports of Iquique and Pisagua, each of which required a steep and winding descent of around 3000 feet (900 m.) to the shoreline. Add in the fact that the whole region was within the desert commonly known as the Atacama – the driest in the world – and railway operation by steam was clearly not easy.
Somewhat to the Monteros’ chagrin the railways’ creditors forced a financial restructuring in 1874 and ownership passed to The National Nitrate Railways Company of Peru which, despite the name, was clearly controlled from London. However, a much bigger upheaval at the end of that decade resulted from the War of the Pacific, between Peru and Bolivia on the one hand, and Chile on the other. Whilst ownership of the nitrate grounds was clearly an important factor in the conflict, this is not the place to go into details, merely noting that Tarapacá and the whole NR network ended up under Chilean rather than Peruvian administration. A further re-financing followed the war, with The Nitrate Railways Co. Ltd. then becoming an explicitly British-owned business.
The locomotive fleet
Nitrate Railways motive power has featured a number of times in past editions of , notably in articles by Donald Binns, Ian Thomson Newman or Harold Middleton Nagel in issues 3, 64, 98, 125 and 130, though only the first of those considered the network's 19th century mainline traction.
