About this journey

São Luís station sits on Upaon-Açu Island, a city founded by France on 8 September 1612 whose historic centre became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. The journey leaves the island almost immediately, crossing the Benedito Leite Metallic Bridge over the Strait of Mosquitoes, a steel structure completed in 1928 that was essential to connecting the island capital to the mainland rail network.

The line is the São Luís–Teresina Railway, authorised by Federal Law no. 1329 in 1905 after river navigation on the Itapecuru was judged inadequate. Its earliest sections were built to serve cotton-producing centres in the interior of Maranhão, with the stretch from São Luís reaching Caximbos in 1919 and extending to Caxias in 1920. Today the metric-gauge line is operated by Ferrovia Transnordestina Logística and functions primarily as a fuel corridor between the Port of Itaqui and Teresina, hauled here by an SD70M locomotive. Passenger services, which had continued until the 1980s, no longer run.

The route ends at Vitória do Mearim, where the station is considered one of the most significant on the Carajás Railway network. The journey thus moves from a former colonial capital, across a historic river crossing, through interior Maranhão to a freight hub that now anchors this railway's modern purpose.