The historic La Trochita train derailed in Río Negro: four tourists were injured

The old Patagonian express La Trochita derailed this morning at kilometer 134, in the province of Rio Negro. Following the accident, there were four people injured and, according to official sources, they are not serious.

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Two of the patients had multiple traumas and fractures, so they were transferred to the Ingeniero Jacobacci hospital, while a third – with a pelvic fracture and hemodynamic instability – was taken to the Maitenes hospital, according to the Ramón Carrillo Zonal Hospital in Bariloche.

Ambulances from El Bolsón, Maquinchao and Comallo provided support after the accident, while the Rio Negro Comprehensive Emergency Medicine Care System (Siarme) was available for an eventual emergency. air transfer if the conditions of a patient require it, given the adverse weather conditions.

The formation had begun its journey in Ingeniero Jacobacci and derailed between Mamuel Choique and Río Chico, an area with big connectivity problemsso information was scarce.

The president of the Patagonian Train, Daniel García, confirmed to Télam that “an incident occurred,” clarified that “there are no serious injuries” and added that the affected people were treated “in accordance with the rules established for these cases.”

From the Civil Protection of the Rio Negro town of San Carlos de Bariloche they maintained that the centenary little train derailed without “anything serious happening.”

According to reports, the training transferred 53 personas and the majority were from a contingent of North American tourists. According to the portal rionegro.comthe four injured people are citizens of the United States.

La Trochita, named for its narrow trail of 75 centimeterswas inaugurated in 1945 with carriages manufactured in 1922, it is famous worldwide as a tourist train and its cars are considered a “relic.”

The history of “La Trochita” is linked to a project from the beginning of the 20th century with the aim of expanding the national railway network towards the Patagonia, through a route that would reach the south of the South and that would unite the Ocean with the mountain range. The arrival of the train to Engineer Jacobacci, in Río Negro, in 1917 was the first precedent. Five years later, the locomotives and wagons appeared, and it was not until 1945 that the route would add 402 kilometers in a route of 600 curves to finally reach Esquel.

During his first five years of life, the Patagonian Express “La Trochita” transported cargo and It was only in 1950 when it began to carry passengersbecoming the main means of transportation for the inhabitants of the northwest of Chubut. Around 1960 and 1970, “La Trochita” occupied a central place in the life of the towns whose stations it visited along its route. and it is from the proliferation of automotive transport, mainly with trucks and buses as well as the opening of roads, when its useful life began to be compromised.

At the time of the closure of the railways in the last decade of the 20th century, the tourist reconversion of the express kept it alive. Faced with the national decision to dispense with railway work, it was the provinces of Río Negro and Chubut who decided to bet on its continuity.

A quarter of a century later, The old machine from 1922 is a living testimony of a central means of transportation for national development and particularly for the town of Patagonia. The steam shot into the sky from the chimney, its wooden carriages, the lit salamander and that gait between naivety and tiredness, invite passengers all year round to be moved and let themselves be caught up in a piece of history that continues to march.