Bogota

Last night there was a short item on British tv (Newsnight) about traffic problems in Bogota. It seems the mayor there admires Ken Livingstone and the congestion charge (as a non-car owner, I think it's an excellent idea as it makes the buses go faster).

Briefly there were glimpses of a number of steam locomotives from the original 3 ft gauge Colombian system that has been closed for several years. It seems there is to be a tourist train.

Road congestion is prompting thoughts about reviving the railway, at least inthe city area. Few details were given. Perhaps they will use the right of way for a more modern system.

Never made it to Colombia , but in the eighties the trains were running and in reasonable shape . prone to massive landsides though , much like most of mounatinous south america .
I found it strange that cities such as Mexico City , and lima , did not have rail commuter service .

Never made it to Colombia , but in the eighties the trains were running and in reasonable shape . prone to massive landsides though , much like most of mounatinous south america .
I found it strange that cities such as Mexico City , and lima , did not have rail commuter service .

David Benton wrote:Never made it to Colombia , but in the eighties the trains were running and in reasonable shape . prone to massive landsides though , much like most of mounatinous south america .
I found it strange that cities such as Mexico City , and Lima , did not have rail commuter service .

Mexico city has a very extensive metro system but possibly no suburban heavy rail.

The news item was partly to indicate that Colombia has other things to report than drugs and civil war. The main item was about a rapid transit system using buses that stop only at "stations" and run on bus lanes. This is a popular pre-metro system and has been used in at least one Brazilian city.

Paul Theroux travelled on the trains there in the 1970s but never mentioned the gauge or whether he was pulled by steam or diesel. I have learned elsewhere that the gauge was three feet. This is a cripplingly narrow gauge for a national system. It seems to me that if rail is ever revived there they must use a wider gauge. But of course the civil engineering is probably adapted for the very narrow gauge and so would not fit a standard or Spanish gauge line.

yeah , good metro system in mexico . could be one reason why the commuter rail hasnt developed .
narrow gauge is ideal for mountain railroading , its not really a drawback to better service or speed . what does keep things slow is the lack of upgrading since the lines were first built .

There was another glimpse of the steam tourist railway in Bogota tonight on Newsnight. The item was mainly about Physics and the fact that at the high altitudes of Colombia steam was actually at an advantage compared with diesel, because steam locomotives are not hindered by the low atmospheric pressure.

(I can remember riding a Honda 50 from Kampala to Nairobi at Christmas 1965, and finding the engine pulled very weakly in the high country of the Uasin Gishu plateau (7000 feet).

I still wonder what the gauge was. An aerial shot of a locomotive made the track look very narrow, not unlike the Ffestiniog, so I wonder whether in fact it was only 2ft gauge.

yup , diesels lose alot of power at high altitude , at the kind of altitudes tehy have in the andes , it would be very significant . Turbocharging makes up for some of it . But steam would have an advantage , given the low wages and lack of foriegn currencey prevalent ni these countries .

The Ferrocarril Central Andino in Peru figured that the way around HP and compression problems at altitude was to blend natural gas with diesel. They mucked about with the stuff for a while and seemed to come up with a plan they were happy with. Of course, whether this is financially viable depends on what the fully burdened (e.g. with taxes) cost of CNG vs. diesel is in any given country.

The article is at http://www.rrdc.com/article_07_2006_fcc ... wr_RGI.pdf

They also demonstrate that narrow gauge doesn't really impact overall efficiency--those units are former U.S. standard gauge. This railroad is fun because it beats the per-axle toll fee to the gov't by stacking empty cars on top of each other for the return trip!

Even further off-topic, for more proof of the versatility of narrow gauge and heavy tonnage, check out this album from Brasil:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/archiv ... 12&Page=36

This pic gives an idea of the difference in size between most narrow-gauge equipment and U.S. standard gauge:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=177179
Note that the C-C trucks have been replaced with B-B+B-B in order to take full advantage of the tractive effort on a meter-gauge line. Fun stuff!

But alas, the ability of these narrow-gauge railroads to produce any quantity of ton-miles in Latin America has more to do with whether the governments get their fingers out of the railroad business than any fundamentals of the technology. Peru is a great example of this.