The Train to the End of the World at Ushuaia,Argentina was otiginally built to transport covict labour but now used by tourists
On the 3 January 1896, Tierra del Fuego was named for a prison for corrective punishment sentenced by the judges of the Federal District and Federal Territories for second time offenders, and the governor was commissioned to build and regulate the jail. A few days later the jail for reoffenders was set up in Ushuaia, in temporary buildings of a very precarious nature, made of zinc and wood. In the first few months of the new century the jail received its first inmates. According to the Penal Code of the time, their sentences were just short of the death penalty. The 2nd director of the jail, started the construction of a permanent jail and, on the 15th September 1902 laid the foundation stone. The jail was built using local materials: basalt rock, timber from the forests, clay and sand from the streams in the region. Labour was provided by the convicts themselves. a train that ran on wooden rails, was set up to transport the materials. Its gauge was less than a metre in width and its shallow wagons pulled by oxen along the crude rails. At the end of 1909 and the beginning of 1910, the first railway movements were recorded. The Decauville railway, with a 60 cm gauge, was put into service and became known locally as the "Convict Train". The little train crossed the town along the waterfront, linking the jail to the woodcutting site. The new train became a vital asset in the completion of the jail and in securing wood for cooking and heating throughout the Old settlers in the region still remember the locomotive they fondly called "The Coquette". It was the smallest of the fleet and the first to arrive at the jail. It got its name from the little jumps it made as it puffed along the tracks. In 1952 the "Convict Train" stopped running, After four decades lying forgotten, the train was given new life with restoration. The "Convict Train" reemerged as a handsome tourist train called the "Ferrocarril Austral Fueguino".The Train to the end of the World.
Size: 3402px × 5153px
Location: Ushuaia,Argentina,South America,
Photo credit: © NORMA JOSEPH / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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