Oddments of all kinds

Grun & Bilfinger SA, contractors

At the back of the Museo Regional in Trelew is an Orenstein & Koppel 0-4-0T, No. 12861 of 1936, as shown left. Gauge is 60cm. It carries a conical spark-arresting chimney and the name 'Rodolfo.' It, with its twin no. 12860, were owned by the Grun & Bilfinger construction company's Argentinean subsidiary. They were used for some time at a dam site in Neuquen province before arriving (in 1948?) at the Florentino Ameghino Dam construction works further up the Chubut valley. As well as these two steam locos the Ameghino Dam works used an O. & K. diesel, no. 21016 of 1937 (1).

The photo was taken in 1975 when its livery was appropriate to its then location in a playground. Nowadays its colour scheme is a combination of black and rust.

The Orenstein & Koppel worksplate is shown left.

'Duncan Fox, Patagonia'
Orenstein & Koppel 0-4-0T no. 6962, a metre gauge 20HP machine, was delivered to the agents Duncan Fox for Argentinean Patagonia in 1913 (4). It was later sold to the Puerto Bories frigorifico line in southern Chile and is illustrated in the appropriate page of chapter 8. No metre gauge industrial lines are known which existed in 1913 so this was probably in a location yet to be discovered. Alternatively it may have worked on the Mina Loreto coal line described in chapter 9.

Peat workings on Staten Island (Isla de los Estados)
David Sinclair has pointed out that peat was being extracted commercially from Staten Island off the SE tip of Tierra del Fuego in the 1940s. Peat workings, wherever they may be, have been consistent users of narrow gauge railways even up to the present day. Enquiries are continuing! In the meantime the only rails recorded on Staten Island were wooden ones forming a line up which to winch boats at the St. John's lighthouse on the extreme eastern tip (5), and the American sealers' tramway midway along the island.

A new peat bog railway
Duncan Campbell of Puerto Natales, who runs the Pat-Brit website, has forwarded photos taken at Río Rubens between Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas. A bog at this location is now being worked using equipment purchased second-hand in Sweden. The operation has been running since the mid-1990s, but the market for the peat is not clear.

The first picture shows a line running along the edge of the working bog, with a branch leading off into the middle of the workings. The track is of 60cm gauge, in panels imported from Sweden.

There seems to be one loco, a small four-wheeled diesel. This is by Vaggarydsgraväre AB of Vaggaryd in Sweden, and is their builder's number 7 constructed in 1985. To quote Eljas Polho of Finland, "The original owner of VG 7 was Sundholm Skog och Torv AB, Järsnäs, Sweden (A peat operation). The VG-locomotive was sold to Chile in April 1996, with 3 wagons, 1km of rails and some other peat machinery."

Another view of the Swedish diesel.

A wagon chassis out on the moss. Eljas Polho also gave the information that "Hörle Torv (another peat bog in Sweden) sold 10 wagons and 2km of rails to Chile." but whether this equipment also came to Rio Rubens is not known.

A final picture shows the line curving out towards the bog.

References
1 Industrial Railways of Argentina - loco lists. Revised edition 1998. Reg Carter. 46 Mill St., Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, KT1 2RF, UK. Info kindly forwarded by Christopher Walker
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 O. & K. Dampflokomotiven - Lieferverzeichnis 1892-1945 by R. Bude, K. Fricke & Dr. M. Murray, 1978. Railroadiana Verlag.
5 The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn. 1895. J. R. Spears. G. P. Puttnam's Sons, New York & London. p144.

An Arthur Koppel advert from an issue of The Review of the River Plate in 1906.

28-5-08