THE FIRST TRANSANDINE RAILROAD FROM 

 BUENOS AIRES TO VALPARAISO 



By Harriet Chalmers Adams 



ARGENTINA and Chile were neigh- 

 bors, but they could not well be 

 ^ sociable with a mountain barrier 

 between. A passage, however, has at 

 last been opened through the towering, 

 snow-clad Andean wall, and enthusiastic 

 crowds in Buenos Aires and in Santiago 

 de Chile have sped departing trains 

 bound for the adjacent territory. The 

 great Transandine Railway is completed. 



On the 5th of last April the Trans- 

 andine tunnel, the final link in the 888 

 miles of rail connecting Buenos Aires 

 and the Atlantic with \'alparaiso and the 

 Pacific, was officially opened on the 

 Chilian side of the mountains at Cara- 

 coles station. 



It was a fitting day for a Chilian cele- 

 bration, since it commemorated the anni- 

 versary of the patriotic battle of Maipo, 

 dear to the heart of every native of the 

 far south as the greatest and final victory 

 in the war of independence. Many 

 prominent men of the Republic were 

 present, including members of the cabi- 

 net, and at the banquet subsequently held 

 in honor of this historic event Argen- 

 tina's representatives were entertained 

 before their return to their own country 

 on the other side of the tunnel. 



Argentina's official opening of the road 

 was postponed until the 2_sth of May, 

 which is not only Independence Day in 

 the Republic, but also the inaugural date 

 of the Centenary Exhibition. 



The chief feature of this most impor- 

 tant of international expositions yet to 

 be held in Latin America is. very appro- 

 priately, a railway exhibition, agriculture 

 and art taking secondary place. Buenos 

 Aires, the fourth metropolis of the 

 Americas, the second Latin city of the 

 world, the fir.st Spanish-speaking center, 

 is to be the scene, for six months, of a 

 brilliant demonstration of progressive 

 Argentina's marvelous development. 



Modern, industrial .Argentina has been 

 created by her railways, which not only 

 cross the country from the Atlantic to 

 the Andes, but penetrate those semi- 

 tropical lands adjoining the verdant Re- 

 public of Paraguay on the north and 

 those bleak, wind-swept pampas on the 

 south bordering the old Patagonian 

 frontier. 



INITIATED BY A MASSACHUSETTS M.\N 



The story of the Transandine Railway, 

 from its earliest projection by a North 

 American captain of industry to its final 

 completion by an Anglo-.Vmerican syndi- 

 cate, is worthy of a prominent place in 

 engineering annals. 



William Wheelwright, a native of 

 Nevvburyport, Massachusetts, was the 

 first to conceive the idea of a transandine 

 road. The plan, which he outlined in 

 i860, called for the building of a railway 

 from Caldera, on the Chilian coast, east- 

 ward through the mountain pass of San 

 Francisco, and thence across the pampas 

 of Argentina to Rosario, a port on the 

 Parana River — a more northerly route 

 than the one finally adopted. 



To the indomitable zeal of the Chilian 

 brothers, Juan and Mateo Clark, how- 

 ever, is due the major honor of the actual 

 achievement. When, in 1872, having 

 fulfilled their contract for the installation 

 of a telegraph line across the Andes, 

 thev applied to the .Argentine Congress 

 for railway concessions from Buenos 

 Aires to the Chilian frontier, they were 

 regarded by many as idle dreamers. Yet 

 one of the brothers, happily, has lived 

 to realize the triumphant fiilfillment of 

 his dream. 



In 1874 the .Argentine concessions 

 were obtained by the Clarks ; in 1878 the 

 contract was signed ; but manv obstacles 

 arose and it was not until t886 that a 

 companv — The Transandine Railway — 



