History of rail transport in Bolivia

The history of rail transport in Bolivia began in the 1870s after almost three decades of failed efforts to build railroads to integrate the country, mining was the driving force for the construction of railways.

It was the silver mining, however, that drove the construction of a railway from the Pacific coast to the high plateau during the nineteenth century.

Later, at the beginning of the twentieth century, tin mining gave a new impetus to railway building, forming what is now known as the Andean or Western network.

Some examples of the first failed efforts in 1856 were the call for a tender to build the Cobija–Calama railroad by President Córdova and the agreement between Peru and Bolivia to unite Tacna and La Paz with the "camino lane".

The railroads arrived in Bolivia driven by economic interests associated with raw material exports, first of saltpeter and later of silver.

In 1886 the railroad arrived in Calama, very close to the new frontier, which aroused great opposition in Bolivia, considering it more of military than commercial interest.

[2] The Antofagasta–Oruro railway took over the Bolivian foreign trade that had traditionally passed through Salta, Argentina, but also enabled imported flour to displace the flour produced in Cochabamba in the markets of La Paz and Oruro and imported sugar to replace the sugar produced traditionally in Santa Cruz and sold in the markets of Potosí.

[3] For the mining industry, railways made it possible to reduce the cost of inputs (especially fuel) and increase export volumes by making it competitive to transport ore with lower silver content.

For the Huanchaca Mining Company, the connection of the railway to its works contributed to an increase of 87% in average production between the period 1882–1888 and 1889–1895.

[7] In order to regulate the process of railway expansion, the government of Juan Misael Saracho promulgated of General Law of Railroads the 3rd October 1910.

The political and economic necessity of building railways, led to them accounting for 40% of Bolivia's $72 million foreign debt (mostly British, American and French) between 1900 and 1930.

Under the terms of the 1904 Treaty of Peace and Friendship (1904), the Chilean government undertook to build the Arica–La Paz railway, completed in 1913, thereby connecting the country's political and economic center with Arica, a natural port for Upper Peru since colonial times.

Rodríguez Ostria synthesizes the arrival of the railroad from Oruro to Cochabamba as follows: Together with two exceptions of the first period—the Cochabamba–Vinto (18 km) and Cochabamba–Arani (60 km) railroads built by Luz y Fuerza Eléctrica (which included Simón I. Patiño among its main shareholders) between 1910 and 1913—the Oruro–Cochabamba railway had a major impact on the internal transport of passengers and freight.

However, in the case of flour in Cochabamba, local and domestic railways allowed rather the recovery of regional markets in the 1920s that had been adversely affected by railroads in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In 1932, with the outbreak of the Chaco War in 1932, however, there was an increase in cargo and revenues due to the transportation of troops, ammunition and supplies to the army.

In any case, it shows the important role of the railroad in the transport of passengers when they exceeded the mark of two million and its contribution to the integration of the country.

The first Brazilian locomotive arrived in Santa Cruz in November 1953 and the railroad was inaugurated 5 January 1955, 17 years after the beginning of the works.

In 1959, the government of Bolivia took over the administration of the Bolivian Railway Co. lines because it had not reached an agreement on the dismissal of personnel which, according to the company, was the cause of its deficit.

[26] In 1967, the Joint Argentine-Bolivian Commission proposed to extend the line to Argentina north of Santa Cruz, but to reach a navigable port in the Amazon River system.

[27] At the beginning of the seventies, ENFE faced a number of problems common to other railway companies: low-density traffic operations; Old equipment (see Table 2) and poorly maintained; Lack of experienced management cadres and low level of job training; Lack of a trade policy and inadequate tariff structure; Deficit lines (Sucre–Tarabuco and Cochabamba–Aiquile) and excess personnel.

As in the case of cargo, however, the relative importance of the eastern grid grew during this period: it represented 45% of passengers transported in 1995 (Table 4).

The capitalization of railroads, which began in 1995, was made in the context of the neo-liberal reforms of the Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada government.

It was carried out with several objectives: to restructure the sector through the entry of private entrepreneurs; Reduce political interference; Attract capital to improve infrastructure and operations; Regulate the sector by eliminating existing distortions; reduce dependence on the railroad system for state subsidies and generate revenue for the treasury through taxes, and improve transportation in the country.

Assets were transferred as rolling stock, workshop equipment, maintenance and communications, stockpiles of spare parts and materials and office furniture and implements.

[38] The Eastern Railroad Company was formed on the basis of the Western Enterprise Network of Railways, with approximately 1,426 km, crossing the departments of Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija.

This last network connects the agricultural environment of Santa Cruz and the natural gas-producing region to the south of Bolivia with Argentina and Brazil.

[41] At the same time, the coverage of the rail system was reduced by closing several unproductive branches, which were returned by the private companies to the State.

The most relevant traffic to justify such work is the transport of iron ore from El Mutún on the border with Brazil to the Pacific.

[44] During his trip to China in December 2013, President Evo Morales talked to General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping about the possibility of building the interconnection between the Andean and Eastern network as part of the interoceanic corridor to link the Atlantic with the Pacific.