Work on a Paraguayan rain network began in 1856 under to presidency of Carlos Lopez. It was one of the very first in the Americas. English engineers were bought over to supervise the works and by 1861 tracks had been laid as far as the town of Trinidad, 4km from Asuncion.
From this small beginning there would eventually be laid 440km of interconnected tracks. The destination of the main line was Encarnacion in the south of the country across the Rio Parana from Posadas in Argentina. In addition several hundred more kilometres of private lines were in time laid out across Paraguay.
The final network was however much less than had originally been planned. Within a few years of the start the track laying all work was bought to a halt by the out break of the Triple Alliance War which pitted Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. With all man power diverted to the the war and then Paraguay’s defeat work did not recommence until the 1880s. When the building did continue it was not the Paraguayan government but a private British company doing the work.
Once completed the tracks did reach Encarnacion, but due to the war the freight and passengers using the trains was far lower than had been originally anticipated. The service never became profitable and always lacked the resources to modernize the 19th century infrastructure and early 20th century rolling stock.
The trains were all steam driven. Large wood burning engines that moved at a stately pace across the countryside. There are still a few preserved examples of these fine old trains around the country. The best preserved are kept at the Estacion Botanico on the outskirts of Asuncion.
These old trains continued running right up until the end of the 20th century when a review after a derailment concluded that bringing the rail network up to modern standards was not a financially viable proposition. Therefore there after the network never reopened. Over the following years this became less and less likely to happen as stretches of track were grassed or removed and the rain companies finances did not improve.
For a while a weekly service was put on for tourists running from Estacion Botanico to the lakeside town of Aregua. This was still running when I first came to Paraguay and was a very pleasant two hour trip. After a while the funds for even this ran dry and now the trains are but static tourist attractions.
In the center of Asuncion the old central station has been turned into a railway museum with various items of railway memorabilia on display along with the English engine which was the first train to arrive in Asuncion. The station is in the historic center of Asuncion and so easily reached by any visitor to the city.
Elsewhere about 100km from Asuncion the old engine sheds in Sapucai have been been turned into an industrial museum. They are full of old railway machinery, much of it like the engineers and the engines originating in England. It has been several years since I visited but I hope to be able to get there again soon.
For the future there are from time to time stories in the Paraguayan press of plans to relay track and restart a train network with modern rolling stock. The most recent was that the rebuilding of the network would be done with the aid of funds from Taiwan.
So there may one day once more be trains rolling across the Paraguayan countryside.
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