La Trochita (Old Patagonian Express)

The narrow-gauge steam railway across the Patagonian steppe — the original Old Patagonian Express

The narrow-gauge (75 cm) steam railway that runs from Esquel station east across the windy Patagonian steppe to Nahuel Pan and, on longer runs, further to El Maitén. The line was built between 1922 and 1945 to connect the wool-and-cattle estancias of north-western Patagonia to the broad-gauge network at Ingeniero Jacobacci, 400km north; it was Argentina's only narrow-gauge steam line and ran into the 1990s.

The Esquel tourist run is short (a couple of hours) but the experience is the thing — Baldwin-built American locomotives from the 1920s, wooden passenger cars with cast-iron stoves, the steppe outside the windows. At Nahuel Pan there is a stop at a small Mapuche craft market and a steam-engine turntable. Operating days are limited (typically Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday in season); book ahead through the Esquel station, especially in summer.

things to do sight
A story
When Paul Theroux finished the journey he describes in The Old Patagonian Express in 1979, he had taken the train from Boston to here, ending his book at the Esquel platform. The line was deemed unprofitable and closed by the Argentine state in 1993; the public outcry was so strong that the Chubut and Río Negro provinces took it over and now run it as a tourist line.