(Uma versão em português deste texto está disponível aqui)
The Waterfalls' train was a short tourist composition that used to run on weekends in Rio Acima, small city in the state of Minas Gerais. It had been active for four years, between 2012 and 2015.
The train was composed by one old steam locomotive and three passenger cars, one of them panoramic, with large glassed windows.
Locomotive Elizabeth I leaving the station in direction to
Somehow in a frustating way, the passengers discovered, only when they were bording in, that despite the name of the train, the term "Waterfalls" therein had nothing to do with the route itself, but with the fact that there are many waterfalls near the city. Because of those waterfalls, each car of the train was named after one of them: car one was 'Samsa', car two was 'Chicadona' and the last car was 'Véu da Noiva'.
The line the train run on was a short section of the old and now abandoned Downtown Line, a metric gauge (1,0 meter) line of the Central do Brasil Railway. Until the mid-90s the state-owned company RFFSA operated daily passenger trains on this line, connecting the city of Rio Acima to the capital Belo Horizonte. Since then, the RFFSA was privatized and this line remained abandoned for almost thirty years, but fortunaletly the businessman Flávio Iglesias decided to create a tourist project to put the train on the tracks again: the Waterfalls' Train Project.
The total line used by the Waterfalls' Train had seven kilometers from
one end to the other. In this short rail section, the composition left the
station backwards until a railroadswitch located about one kilometer away, near
the composition's garage. There, the locomotive switched the road and took the
main line coupling the other side of the composition and then going back toward
to the station. The composition passed by the station and went to the outskirts
of Rio Acima, crossing an old metal brigde over a river and then, a few
kilometers away, amidst a green natural enviroment, already in the limits of
Horório Bicalho (a city next to Rio Acima) it stopped. The locomotive then took
the other side of the composition and went back to the station again, where the
next passengers waited for the new trip.
Locomotive beeng maneuvered on the turnout near the station
Photo: Campos (2014)
The implantation of the Waterfalls Train was, among a few other examples,
a rare fact in the country in the last decades.
Most of the train services were interrupted and many lines were abandoned
or even supressed. To have the train back on track, Flávio Iglesias sought for
help of the Brazilian Association for Railway Preservation (Associação Brasileira
de Preservação Ferroviária) that helped him to recover the railway section that
would be used by the train project, bought a steam locomotive and the three
passenger cars.
Locomotive Elisabeth pulling passenger cars in frot of the station
Photo: Campos (2014)
Side plate on locomotive Elisabeth
Photo: Campos (2014)
The locomotive was a 1924 German machine (Orenstein und Koppel
AK) of 0-4-0 wheel arrangement according to the Whyte notation. It was
named Elisabeth I and came from Germany in the 40’s.
In Brazil, it pulled sugar cane wagons in alcohol industries and was
abandoned for many years in the city of Timbaúba in the Brazilian state of
Pernambuco until it was bought and renovated in São Paulo for the tourist
project.
Locomotive Elisabeth before being renovated.
Photo: Perez (2006). Inventário das locomotivas a vapor no Brasil.
Locomotive Elisabeth before being renovated from another angule.
Photo: Perez (2006). Inventário das locomotivas a vapor no Brasil.
The Waterfalls' Trains attracted many tourists
to the city of Rio Acima. The people involved in the Project hoped the train’s
tracks would be extended to the nearby city of Nova Lima.The idea was to buy another locomotive that was in
the state of Paraiba and would also be renovated. However, the idea of
extension never had the chance to become real, beacuse in 2015 the train could
not run anymore due to a disagreement between the mayor of the city and the
project administration.
The train was an iniciative of the private group CRAT (Centro de Referência Ambiental e
Turística) in agreement with the mayor of Rio Acima and should work for ten
year after its foundation.
