About this journey

Morretes station stands in a colonial river town founded in 1721, some 70 km from the state capital Curitiba. From here, the Ramal de Antonina of the former Estrada de Ferro Paraná curves away from the main Curitiba–Paranaguá line and heads toward the bay. That trunk railway began traffic in 1885 — inaugurated by Princess Imperial Dona Isabel as the first railway in Paraná state — though its arrival paradoxically disrupted Morretes itself, halting the erva-mate mills that had sustained the town.

The branch stretches 16 km through terrain that descends from the Serra do Mar escarpment toward the Baía de Paranaguá, passing through the largest preserved stretch of Atlantic Forest in Brazil. Passenger services on this line had been suspended for 30 years before the Trem Caiçara was inaugurated on 21 November 2020, revived by ABPF in partnership with local authorities and Rumo Logística. The locomotive hauling the train is a Baldwin Mogul, a steam design of a type long associated with these coastal gradients.

Antonina, at the end of the branch, sits just 5 metres above sea level on the shore of the Baía de Paranaguá. The journey moves from a mountain-edged colonial interior to a low coastal town, tracing a short line that spent decades dormant before returning to carry passengers once more.