Introduction
La Trochita, (El Viejo Expreso Patagónico), is a 750 mm (2 ft 5 in) narrow gauge railway in Patagonia, Argentina using steam locomotives. It is also known as the Old Patagonian Express, arguably the slowest express in the world. The nickname La Trochita means literally “little gauge” though it is sometimes translated as “The Little Narrow Gauge”.
The railway is 402 km in length and runs through the foothills of the Andes between Esquel and El Maitén in Chubut Province and Ingeniero Jacobacci in Río Negro Province. Originally it was part of Ferrocarriles Patagónicos, a network of railways in southern Argentina. Nowadays, with its original character largely unchanged, it operates as a heritage railway and was made internationally famous by the 1978 Paul Theroux book The Old Patagonian Express, which described it as the railway almost at the end of the world. The steam railroad at Ushuaia some 1200 km to the south now qualifies for this.
History
In 1908, the Government of Argentina planned a network of railways across Patagonia. Two main lines would join San Carlos de Bariloche in the central Andes with the sea ports of San Antonio Oeste on the Atlantic coast to the east, and Puerto Deseado on the coast to the south east. Branches were to be built to connect the mainline with Buenos Aires
