Hotels in Argentina
This is a journey to delight any railway enthusiast. Not only are you travelling on the world's southernmost railway line but you are pulled by one of several heritage steam engines along a narrow gauge track with a fascinating past.
The railway starts 8 km (5 mi) from Ushuaia and runs for some 14 km (9 mi) into Tierra del Fuego National Park, a protected area of 630 sq km (240 sq mi) once inhabited by Yamaha Indians. As the train meanders along the River Pipo valley at a sedate 15 kph (9 mph) you have breathtaking views of the wild glacial landscape of the South Andes Cordillera - steep snow-capped mountains, rivers, waterfalls, woods and lakes interspersed with tundra plateau carpeted in lichens and mosses. The journey ends at Estación del Parque from where you can explore this remote region on foot.
Although today the End of the World Train is a tourist attraction, it was originally built to ful1il an altogether murkier purpose - the transportation of forced labour to the hinterland forest and of felled trees back to the coast. By the end of the 19th century the Argentinian authorities had established a penal colony as far away from civilization as possible, at the tip of South America. From these inauspicious beginnings emerged today's city or Ushuaia, its earliest buildings constructed by convicts using timber from the surrounding sub-polar forests. The prison was transformed into a naval base in 1947 and the railway was decommissioned in 1952 after na earthquake badly damaged the track. The growth of the travel industry led to its re-opening in 1994 as an environmentally-friendly means of conveying tourists to an otherwise inaccessible part of the National Park. Despite the best efforts of tourist brochures, the railway is still commonly known as 'The Prisoners Train'.
HOW
By train
WHEN TO GO
All year
TIME IT TAKES
One hour
HIGHLIGHTS
Ushuaia Museo del Presidio – Prison Museum.
Cañadón del Toro gorge.
Cascada La Macarena waterfall.
Tree cemetery.
YOU SHOULD KNOW
To fully appreciate the trip it is a good idea to visit the Prison Museum first, where you will get atmospheric impressions of life in the penal colony and find out more about the railway and National Park.
