National Geographic: Love Those Trains Page #3

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can still

recall the old days

when steam engines ruled the rails.

The halcyon days of steam and

rail began after World War 1.

The Big Boy of the 1940s was driven

by four pistons

that powered 16 drive wheels.

It was the largest steam engine

ever built,

and could pull a train five miles long

And during World War II, steam engines

transporting the freight,

weapons, and troops to the seacoasts,

made possible the fast buildup

of America's war machine.

In the 1950s, steam gave way to

diesel and rail companies,

competing for passengers

promoted streamliners

as the chic way to travel.

But late in the decade,

passengers shifted to automobiles

and airplanes for long-distance travel

and trucks took over much

of the freight.

The low point came in the 1970s.

congress rescued six bankrupt

railroad by creating Conrail.

Railroad lines were abandoned,

and hundreds of

stations closed for good.

Although Americans seemed to lose

interest in passenger train travel,

some countries maintained their

trains as national treasures.

The narrow-gauge Guayaquil and

Quito Railway in Ecuador

plays a vital part in national life,

and people here use the railroad

like a party line.

It even serves as a food market

on wheels.

Train buff and writer Carla Hunt

has traveled

throughout South America on trains.

The Guayaquil-to-Quito run draws

her back as the

most exciting in South America.

A train buff's dream

an American-built Baldwin engine-

a relic from 1900-begins a two-day

climb from sea level

to over 11,000 feet in the Andes.

Passengers have a choice

of three classes.

Second class costs a dollar sixty.

First-class cars sport padded seats

for two dollars ten cents,

and local vendors offer lunch

on brown paper.

The affluent, who ride deluxe,

get reserved seats and meal service.

But some prefer the roof where

conductors seldom collect tickets.

American engineers

laid out the route in 1898.

It took ten years to cut the line

from the sugar cane fields

of the lowlands up over the Andes.

When the train going up fails to meet

the train coming down

at the appointed siding,

there's an unscheduled stop

for a phone call to find out

what happened to the other train.

These trains, not only do they

carry the people up and down,

but they carry the mail.

Every once in a while you see them

with a medical prescription,

a telex that might have come

into Guayaquil

but can't make it up

between the two points.

There is a telex facility at Tiobamba.

But between here and Riobamba

there is absolutely nothing.

The train that's coming from Riobama

has a problem in Huigra.

One of the wheels of the machine

was falling down off the track.

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