Ecuador’s Trans-Andean railway links the capital, Quito, to the shipping port of Guayaquil on Ecuador’s Pacific coast.

Most of the route crosses over the Andes mountains, which made construction of the railway a major engineering challenge.

In this video we visit the Devil’s Nose – possibly the most challenging section of the line to construct. They needed to find a way to enable trains to climb (and descend) 150 metres in barely 1.5 kilometres. A 10% slope is way too steep even for modern tarins, let alone the steam locomotives back in 1900. And this mountain was made of hard basaltic rock – far too hard for the tunnel technology of the day.

So Dynamite and human labour became the principal earthmoving tools. It was a very dangerous construction project and it is estimated that 2,000 workers - almost half of the total workforce - were killed or died during the construction! That’s why the name – the Devil’s Nose.

If you have an opportunity to visit Ecuador, a visit to Alausi and the ride on the Devil’s Nose train is well worth the experience. (This footage was shot in pre-COVID 2017)

This video has captions in English and Spanish
Este video tiene subtítulos en inglés y español.