Re: Ecuador - Everyone has got it wrong! It is not a tourist railroad! It is a National transport System!

Hi Michael,

Your view is more of the positive side of the view of how this great understaking will sort out. I too was wondering if spending the massive capitialization on a nearly dormant system is going to see a return. Not immediately, however if the system is kept up and the tourist bring some good income, then the next steps might be limited local service and eventual freight service.

What a lot of railfans are feeling the loss of is the old casual style of operations. In 2009 the new manager said the business will not be as usual. He pointed out that several different local Ecuadorian travel operators used the G&Q as their own private operation. These operators and you know who they were, are not on the A list anymore. For years before 2009 the charter trains only paid the cost of operations and crews. No real track charges were collected. That is why the manager said to expect a different kind of business plan.

Maybe in 5-10 years other parts of the system may be rebuilt. Right now the line has to get opened and the new management has got to see where and what will sell to the tourist market. If the investment in the track, new trains and rebuilt infrastructure does not pay off in the first few years, will the Ecuadorian Congress have to make some cuts or make the railroad become self sufficent. That is why I believe that even thought they have had business consultants from several successful tourist operations, the actual operations will need to be evaluated by the locals over the next few years and refined to what really works for it.

Consider that over 400 kms of rebuilt 42 inch gauge track in very poor population will have to have cheap transportation to get many of them away from buses. Charter train operations will be different and may take some time ot get a feel for what will be the best options.

That said, Miryam and I are going to see how we can intergrate some trips into the new diesel tourist trains for 2012. We also have contacts in Colombia that want us to return and La Trochita contacted us about new charters. It seems the last charter in March 2012 was not what the Argentineans had good experiences with. Europeans can not expect to push the Latin Americans locals around to make a pretty picture, when they are not ready to bust their tales for something in their opinion and experience is excessive or damaging to the equipment.

Ecuador is work in progress and will be something to see as it returns from the grave.

Dale Brown
www.wingsandrails.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2012 01:55AM by DWBrown.