The railway in action

An album of additional pictures showing trains and stations

These have been set out in order from the Ancud end of the line down to Castro.

1
An early scene at Ancud
The postcard shown below, also forwarded by Señor Moraga, shows one of the Davenport locos. A tinted view of Ancud station, reportedly in 1920, includes a group of workers standing on a rake of 'plataforma' wagons adjacent to what appears to be a goods loading platform. A van in the background looks small enough to be a four-wheeler, though the apparent four shadows beneath may merely be a guess by the person touching up and tinting the photo.

2
A train departs from Ancud (1).
This is a much better quality picture taken at the same time as a photo already displayed on an earlier page. The loco now raises a few questions. The cylinders appear to be immediately abaft of the buffer beam, which suggests that it is one of the class 'a' 0-6-2Ts. However, it does not have a clerestory on the cab roof and the relatively deep side tanks have squared off fronts rather than the half-round of the As. There are double coal rails on the tank top, unlike any other loco picture so far seen, and the headlamp seems smaller than that fitted to the A class locos.

The carriage is one of the standard well framed bogie saloons with a double roof. This photo shows how near the bogies are to the extreme ends of the vehicle and a hand brake wheel is also visible inside the vestibule.

The loco shed on the right appears to have gained a lean-to extension since the picture at the head of the Operations page was taken.

3
Ancud station again (1)
The patterning on the corrugated iron roof and the positioning of the shadows suggests that this is indeed Ancud again. A couple of horse-drawn carts wait whilst a loco is in the platform and a carriage in the loop. Details suggest that this may been taken on the same occasion as the previous photos.

4
A celebratory train in Ancud station, for Independence Day ('las fiestas patrias') September 18th (1).

5
Almost certainly on the same occasion (1).
The loco is no. 5039, one of the 'a' class 0-6-2Ts. The year on the board looks like 1951. The photo on the right shows Bernardo O'Higgins who was Chile's first independent leader.

6a & 6b
Chiloe Island has suffered from earthquakes other than the famous one in 1960. The following two pictures from the DIBAM archive show Ancud street scenes after one such event in 1928. In each case the railway track can be seen, raised above street level and with no attempt made to ease the passage of pedestrians, animals or vehicles over it. Click on the pictures to get taken to the DIBAM online archive in which they were found.

7
La estación Pupelde
Another photograph from the DIBAM collection, and the only one to have surfaced showing this station. The locomotive appears to be a Davenport 0-6-2T as can also be seen in the photo of Coquiao station below.

8
Coquiao station shortly after the opening (3)
The typical broad corrugated-iron station roof looks clean and new, as does the station nameboard on a post to the left. A number of horses and riders are visible. A locomotive is hauling a single coach. Whilst the coach is of the normal O&K well pattern, the locomotive is one of the two Davenport 0-6-2Ts delivered to the contractors Lezaeta Duran Hermanos y Cia and eventually passed to the FCE for use on the completed railway.

9
Butalcura station looking north, with the river bridge beyond the station buildings. (This picture is published on the web at the site of the Chilean Dirección de Bibliotecas, Archivos y Museos. Whilst you are recommended to visit their site to view their pictures in context, this page has called up their URLs so that comments could be added here.)

10
An 'a' class loco almost certainly at Butalcura with a northbound train, ie. this view is taken from the opposite end of the station to the previous photo (1).
 

11
The accident around 1930. This appears to be another view of the incident already displayed on the loco and stock page. No details of location or cause are known. The rounded front to the side tanks on some of the 'a' class can be clearly seen here. ( This picture is published on the web at the site of the Chilean Dirección de Bibliotecas, Archivos y Museos, though with the image reversed. Whilst you are recommended to visit their site to view their pictures in context, this page has called up their URLs so that comments could be added here.)

12
Loco 5040 and at least one plataforma together with a track gang? (1) The location is unknown, but the clothing suggests the 1950s.

13
The approach to Castro alongside the road and with 'palafito' stilt houses to the right. This view is looking north away from the station and the smoke in the distance suggests that a train is nearby (2).

14
A crowd poses in front of a highly decorated train at Castro station (1)
The loco is probably an 'a' class, though the cab, unusually, seems to extend right to the back of the bunker. The van behind the loco clearly has a high level American style hand-brake wheel, whilst the two coaches carry the lettering 'FFCC del Est.' above the windows.

The view is looking north, out of the station and along the line. The foremost main track is that to the loco shed off to the left. The short tracks in the foreground are interesting - even the small four-wheeled wagons would have been too heavy to lift onto right-angled tracks like these without the help of wagon turntables, so there must have been some sort of lightweight trolleys or 'zorras' which used them.

A board across the front of the smokebox appears to include the word 'setiembre', so this may as abov be celebrating 'Fiestas Patrias' or Independence Day, a Chilean national holiday on September 18th. Again the clothing suggests a date in the 1950s rather than earlier.

15
Another special occasion at Castro station (1).
This view looks north, with the typical low pitched roof of the station building on the left, the water tank and loco shed further away on the left of the tracks, and some sort of small vessel just visible over the shoreline at the far right. It can be seen that there are three main through tracks in the station area.

The occasion was apparently the visit of Chile's president, Señor Pedro Aguirre Cerda, to Chiloe. The crowd is certainly much bigger than in the previous photos, suggesting a real special occasion rather than just an annual holiday. Two early type bus-carrils are in the platform road. The vehicle furthest left is unidentified as it does not have the double roof of the usual pasenger cars.

16
Another celebratory occasion in front of a later type bus-carril (1).
Occasion, date and location are all unknown.

The following three photos were all taken during the aftermath of the earthquake in 1960. The so-called Valdivia earthquake was one of thhe most powerful ever recorded. It caused both temporary and permanent shifts in sea level around Chiloe, and confirmed the decision to close the railway (2).

17
This photo looks south along the line on the final approach into Castro. If it weren't for the earthquake the area of water between the 'palafitos' and the railway would normally have been the main road!

18
Castro station under water. The single storey station building is to the left with a bogie van in front of it, whilst the loco shed with its clerstory is behind the small shed in the centre.

19
Another view of Castro station, behind the same bogie van to the right, whilst a second vehicle, possibly a cattle wagon, is to the left.

20
A xylo-carril or wooden railway
This picture has sometimes been described as showing a construction train on the Ancud-Castro line. However, it is much more likely to show timber being extracted for one of the many sawmills on the island. The rail show no signs of having a narrow web beneath the wide head and are probably of simple rectangular timber. If so then this is the only photo yet to have surfaced showing such a 'xylo-carril'.

Views on the other FCE narrow gauge branches
Locomotives and stock were standard across the four state railways narrow gauge branches, and there was also much in common with that operating on the Military railway from Puente Alto to Volcan, just outside Santiago. For that reason it can be instructive to look at photos from those lines, particularly when details of locos and rolling stock can be seen.

21
This very clear photo from an album in the http://www.treneschilefotos.tk/ site shows a 'b' class 0-6-0T on the Linares to Colbun branch.

22
Capitan Pastene is north of Puerto Montt and was once connected to the main FCE railway system by a 60cm gauge branch from Saboya. A look at their album of photos on the old line is worthwhile. Scroll down and click on the heading 'El Tren que unía Pastene con Saboya'.

References:
1 Photos discovered by the Camahueto de Hierro student team making a film about the railway, in the Town Archives in Castro.
2 Photos by Gilverto Provoste, a professional photographer in Castro in the mid 20th century.
3 Photo kindly provided by Señor Pablo Moraga.

14-08-10