Brazil's Devil's Railway gets new lease of life

It was the early 1900s and American Percival Farquhar was a man with a mission, determined to succeed where others before him had failed.



The wealthy entrepreneur from Pennsylvania had been granted the concession by the Brazilian government to build a railway to help transport rubber from Brazil and landlocked Bolivia to the outside world.

It would be the third attempt to lay rail tracks in this part of the Amazon rainforest, where treacherous rapids made sections of the Madeira and Mamore Rivers unnavigable.

Farquhar, whose businesses went on to include other railways and ports in Brazil, contracted a US company - May, Jekyll and Randolph . Their task was to build the line from the Bolivian border to Porto Velho in Brazil, where goods could be loaded onto boats to reach the River Amazon and out to sea.

Continue reading the main story : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11578463

Do you know if this line parallels (or has any relationship to) the new highway being built across Brazil to the Pacific, through Peru, with a split off highway section to and through Bolivia to its new sea access port?

The new highway runs across the top of Bolivia and then south down their western border. The railroad runs down Bolivia's eastern border.

Road :

The Brazil-Peru Trans-Oceanic Highway
Project Summary

30 December 2005

The Trans-Oceanic Highway is one of the key projects of the Peru-Brazil-Bolivia axis of the IIRSA initiative. The project entails the construction and renovation of a total of 2603 kilometers of roads connecting the Amazonian state of Acre, Brazil with the port cities of Ilo, Matarani and San Juan de Marcona in the southern coast of Peru. The Brazilian section of the highway has been partially built.

Introduction

The Trans-Oceanic Highway (also known as “inter-oceanic” or “bi-oceanic” highway) is one of the key projects of the Peru-Brazil-Bolivia axis of the IIRSA (South American Regional Infrastructure) initiative. The project entails the construction and renovation of a total of 2603 kilometers of roads connecting the Amazonian state of Acre, Brazil with the port cities of Ilo, Matarani and San Juan de Marcona in the southern coast of Peru. The Brazilian section of the highway has been partially built. Roads BR-364 and BR-317 have been paved from the Brazilian cities of Porto Velho and Rio Branco to Iñapari on the border with Peru. For this reason, the Trans-Oceanic Highway is generally discussed as a renovation and improvement project of three routes that connect the Peruvian-Brazilian border with the Peruvian coast (see map in Figure #1).
Figure #1: Map of the Trans-Oceanic Highway <1>
Objectives

http://www.bicusa.org/EN/Article.10028.aspx

I cannot get that or similar files to display the picture pictorially.

Yes - old steam trains etc are rather cool. As far as I'm aware most or possibly even all of our oldies here in the UK have been restored and are in the hands of private specialist groups. They run them from time to time mainly for charity events.

:hi: