About this journey

Calacoto lies on the Bolivian altiplano section of the Ferrocarril Arica–La Paz, a metre-gauge line that stretches 440 km from the Chilean Pacific coast to the Bolivian highlands, of which 233 km run through Bolivian territory. The railway was built by Chile under the Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1904 and inaugurated on 13 May 1913, passing through three contractors before completion — among them the British firm Sir John Jackson (Chile) Ltd. Seven tunnels punctuate the full route, and until 1968 a 43 km rack-and-pinion section on the Chilean side was needed to scale the Andean escarpment.

All regular passenger services on the line were suspended in 1996 due to lack of demand, and the Bolivian section has since been kept alive only by a local railbus — the vehicle seen throughout this recording. The journey ends at Charaña station, where the border with Chile lies a short distance beyond. Charaña carries its own historical weight: on 8 February 1975 Bolivia's Hugo Banzer and Chile's Augusto Pinochet met at the station to discuss Bolivian access to the sea, negotiations that ultimately proved unsuccessful. The ride from Calacoto to Charaña traces a railway born of diplomatic obligation, shaped by decades of political change, and today sustained by the most minimal of services across the high plateau.