• Ferrocarril Central Andino

  • Discussion about railroad topics everywhere outside of Canada and the United States.
Discussion about railroad topics everywhere outside of Canada and the United States.

Moderators: Komachi, David Benton

  by Benny
 
I think that someone at FCCA, in the late afternoon of yesterday, made a big mistake.
The usual empty tankers haul from the storage site, that generally waits outside the Patio Central to give way to another train that departs from the interior, this time switched and entered completely, loco and cars.
I was there to shot the departing one but instead, from Lima, came a monster-train of more than 60 cars
701+533 concentrato Castilla b_n.jpg
that, after a stop on the road, began to enter Patio Central too.
BUT, on the inside tracks, yet there were the tankers rake, a full train ready to leave and many other cars being serviced on the unloading facility so, after few minutes, the mega-train stopped with many cars still outside and, far more important, blocking the very busy Avenida Gambetta, that connects the maritime customs with the container warehouses and the northern settlements.
treno bloccando av. Gambetta b_n.jpg
Only after more than 30 minutes, when vehicles queuing were paralysing a big part of Callao, it has been possible to free the level crossing but still many cars remained outside Patio Central and the railroad traffic was still blocked.
Later I've gone to a client but today in the morning train circulation was still irregular.
And probably someone lost his job.

Ciao :wink:
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  by Benny
 
The EMD Show Band and Review




VERSUS

The GE Blues breakers



Ciao :wink:
  by Benny
 
Benny and the Jets only plays after a good beansoup! :-D

Ciao :wink:
  by NorthWest
 
Good stuff! 801 sounds great, even if it looks a bit unusual :-D .
  by Benny
 
Nothing special, usual locos and usual grey sky (in fact Tuesday it was even drizzling) but some moments of leisure are a good thing.
Tuesday was a bad day so, being in Callao, I tryed to take some photos to break the unlucky trend.
At Puerto Nuevo nothing, at Guadalupe (the acid terminal) the same and at Patio Central too. I was leaving when saw two railroaders along the line in a place where there was no reason to stay so, through a dirt road I approach them and discovered that 801 was waiting to enter a car in the APM siding.
FCCA 801 manovra racc. APM b_n.jpg
This siding serves a port operator's store where containers that make part of the journey by rail are moved to/from wagons.
The strange thing has been that the car was not a containers' one. Traffic is not yet very much but better of the nothing of some years ago.
For me the interest has been that, although I saw many times wagons inside the yard through the road entrance, it has been my first time for rail operations.
FCCA 801 manovra racc. APM 4 b_n.jpg
Ciao :wink:
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  by Benny
 
Wednesday instead I left a client just three hundred meters from Patio Central and, turning around a bit, arrived the sulphuric acid train.
Some posts back I described the operations so now show only some images. Now the train was hauled by 701 and 533.
The train arrival
FCCA 701+533 acido Guadalupe b_n.jpg
The incoming locos on the trunk and 801 pushing the tankers
FCCA 801 manovra cisterne Guadalupe b_n.jpg
And the return of the locos.
FCCA 533+701 av. Atalaya b_n.jpg
Ciao :wink:
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  by Benny
 
And yesterday the top satisfaction.
It was a long time that I wanted to take photos in one of the most hidden and hot places in Callao, the "asientamento humano Ramon Castilla" and finally, only-the-brave style, I shooted my favourite loco, a nice 56 years old lady.
Please note what a kind of tourist resort!
FCCA 533+containers Castilla 3 b_n.jpg
[attachment=0]FCCA 533+containers Castilla 4 b_n.jpg[/attachment

Ciao :wink:
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  by NorthWest
 
Good stuff. FCCA has a nice variety.
  by Benny
 
The Lima district of El Agustino can't for sure be described as a nice place but offers to the railfans five or six places where take good shots. Unfortunately it isn't very much on my turnarounds and, when I'm there, rarely appears something.
Yesterday I've been lucky so can show you this little sequence. It's not an 84 cars train but better than a finger in the eye...
FCCA draisina 9 all'Agustino rilevato 1 b_n.jpg

Who will be the winner?
FCCA draisina 9 all'Agustino rilevato 3 b_n.jpg
FCCA draisina 9+squadra Agustino b_n.jpg
Ciao :wink:
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  by NorthWest
 
Interesting that the Spanish word for them is 'draisina'. Draisine is technically a name for them in English, but the US versions were typically called speeders if motorized. Nice catch!
  by Benny
 
Well, I wrote in Italian. Here they are known with the slang term of autovías and in other South-American places as zorras (foxes).
I don't know the exact Spanish term but in Italy it is draisina and in French and German the similar draisine.

Ciao :wink:
  by Benny
 
Thanks to the meeting with some young local railfans I improved my knowledge of the Ferrocarril Central and what resulted is not really pleasant.
This is the actual map of the railroad
IMG-20210919-WA0031.jpg
Traffic flows are now very few: the most important is no doubt ore cars from the andean mining area to Callao harbour and the returning empties. Loading points are Chinchan, Yauli where comes the product from Junin too, the Morococha mine, La Oroya, the Unish siding and Cerro de Pasco.
I think that an average of 150 loaded cars are sent daily Monday to Saturday.
Sporadically equipment and spare parts are sent from the harbour to the mines.

In second place there is the sulphuric acid produced by the Cajamarquilla refinery, at the end of a branch from Santa Clara, to an harbor storage site: an average of 30 tankers every day.
Incidentally the refinery, that I supposed working with hydrocarbons, process instead ore but only very few raw material comes by rail.

Some years ago the harbor managing company, APM terminals, opened a new logistics center on the side of the refinery and started a containers traffic between a store near Patio Central and Cajamarquilla. Generally there aren't specific trains but the cars (five or six, the loading track is very short) are added to the other trains one or two times a day.

The last one is a tankers moving between a fuel store in Puerto Nuevo and the mining area, but only one or two cars a time and not every day.

In the past times there was also traffic between the mines and other refineries but now disappeared.
A good traffic source that has been lost is the concrete firm Cemento Andino, that moreover built a long branch to connect Arapa, on the La Oroya-Cerro de Pasco line, to its production plant at Condorcocha and that sends to Huancayo, Lima and Callao but now by road although it has various rail-connected stores.

The loose of concrete traffic and the removal of a line that from Pachacayo gone to Chaucha (the mine it served was no longer exploited)
FCCA lines in 2001
mappa FCCA.jpg
led to the nearly-abandonment of the La Oroya-Huancayo stretch that, before pandemic, was used only approximately ten times a year by the tourist Lima-Huancayo train and now only sees very rare circulations to take ballast from a quarry near Concepción or like the sole movement of this year, when loco 705 gone to Huancayo to take a rail-loaded car.
Talking about closed branches, the famous "cut-off" that connected Ticlio with Morococha passing through the mining fields and avoiding the narrow summit tunnel has been closed around 2007 because of the progress of the mining work and the lifted tracks reused, joint with the ones from the Chaucha branch, to transform at standard gauge the Huancayo-Huancavelica railroad (the latter, that should be useful to get out of isolation one of the poorest regions of Peru, help to export its agricultural products and give more traffic to FCCA, has not yet been assigned to an operator and is still managed, in a criminal manner, by the state).

It's difficult to say how many trains are circulating; apart from the variables connected with the mining production and imponderable factors, there are specific operating ways due to the exceptional characteristics of the line: trains are remarshalled various times to adapt them to the locomotives' traction effort and to negotiate special parts of the way (e.g. some zig-zag have a short intermediate track).
Generally the Lima-Callao stretch, that is the easiest, sees a couple of "acids" and three or four pairs of "chinalcos", as the ore cars are nicknamed from the biggest client of the railroad, but thousands of variants are possible.
Moreover, there are many constraints due to the countless unprotected crossings, disrespect for the railroad by pedestrians and car drivers (like an idiot that, coming from the right, demanded stop the train to give him right to pass) or the hundreds of unauthorised slums grown along the track
FCCA 701 dentro Ramón Castilla b_n.jpg
and so train speed is low (around 20-30 km/h, 15-20 mph).
Last but not least, to avoid accidents for some years the leading loco has to run cab forward and this, due to the lack of turntable at Patio Central, impose many times the use of two machines.

It will follow...

Ciao :wink:
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  by Benny
 
...resume.

This is the actual motive power.

ALCO DL532B 1974 950 hp
415 used mainly for shunting.

EMD GR12 1965-66 1310 hp
533
801 with modified cab and front end
Originally seven locos built for Cerro de Pasco mining railroad; used mainly for shunting and double heading between Callao and Santa Clara.

EMD G22CW 1976-92 1500 hp
538 under overhaul after many years of sidelining
539 used for double heading and last miling between Callao and Chosica

ALCO DL560 1964 2400 hp
608 the sole survivor. Used exclusively for heavy shunting at Cerro de Pasco.

EMD JT26CW2B 1983-86 3000 hp
701 ex 706 renumbered.
702
705
Used between Callao and Chosica or on the Cajamarquilla branch.
Originally six locos built under licence by the brazilian Villares:
701, after a crash, had its frame damaged; exchanged numbers with 706, has been cosmetically restored and exposed in a park of La Victoria district. Removed last year, its fate is unknown.
703 had a cab destroyed by a landslip; sold and rebuilt with only one cab, it now operates Chile.
704 has been cannibalized and the few remaining parts are on a dead track of Monserrate station.

GE C30-8M 1982 3000 hp
1001 used mainly on the upper section of the line. Last running one of five locos obtained from the rebuilding of B36-7s changing trucks and radiators, diminishing fuel tanks and modernization of the engines.

GE B39-8 1987-88 3900 hp
1005 just restarted after more than three months of stop because of electronic troubles
1006 out of order for more than eight years.
Confined to the La Oroya-Cerro de Pasco stretch because couldn't negotiate the narrow summit tunnel. These ones and 415 are the sole four-axle locomotives of FCCA.

GE C30-M3 1977-80 3000 hp
1007
1008
1009 stopped some months ago because of rheostatic braking problems
1010 out of order for nearly three years
Existed a 1011 too but it has been yet radiated.
Used on the upper section or to Cerro de Pasco. Born from the upgrade of C30-7 locos.

GE C39-8 1985-86 3900 hp
1012 some years ago used to test CNG
1014
1016 out of order for three years
1017
1018
1019 out of order for more than a year
1020
1021
1022 out of order for five years
The running locos are mainly used on the higher section apart 1014 that, being in bad condition, is used between Chosica and Callao. Units 1013 and 1015 are yet written off. There are three more units never put in service and still in Norfolk Southern livery.

EMD SD40-2 '80s 3000 hp
1023
1024
1025 dead for almost six years
Used between Chosica, Cajamarquilla and Callao. These locos are too big to negotiate the upper section tunnels.

GE C39-8P 1985-89 3900 hp
1026
1027 out of order for two years
1028 out of order for two years; it's being re-engined.
1029
1030 blue Conrail livery
1031
1032
Mainly used on the upper section.

GE C40-8W 1994 4000 hp
1033 out of order for 15 days because of engine failure.
1034
Used between Matucana and Monserrate with some run to Callao; can't go on the upper section.

To be noted that 415, 533, 538, 539, 608, 701, 702 and 705 are property of the Peruvian State and given on use to the operator (marked FVCA). Instead all other locos are owned by the running company (marked FCCA).

Re-follow...

Ciao :wink:
  by NorthWest
 
Thanks, Benny. That's a lot of useful information. It's a pity that things aren't going well and so many of the locomotives are out of service.

At least a couple Alcos survive.

And, I should have known you were writing in Italian above! :-)
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