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Kevin Hoggett reports on his trip with the Railway Touring Company in October
2016.
Click for the other parts:
Guaqui
On the other side of Lake Titicaca is Guaqui where the ships from Puno used to
arrive. The locomotive shed at Guaqui is now part of a new museum of Lake Titicaca mainly housed in two of the old transship sheds.
The
locomotive shed has been cleaned up and three locomotives, Alco 2-8-0 6, Peckett
0-4-0ST 5 and Baldwin 2-10-2 704 are displayed in good condition. Two ex La Paz trams are also present, and the workshop is intact driven by line shafting from a Ruston horizontal oil engine, there is also a small single cylinder inverted steam engine which could be provided with steam from a
locomotive for emergency use if the Ruston was unavailable. The wheel lathe was built by Colliers of
Salford. The roster details are in John
Middleton's report.
Alco 2-8-0 6 and Peckett 0-4-0ST 5
The three road shed next door is not normally open, but we were shown around by the caretaker, a man with steam in the blood who had worked there for 36 years when the shed was in service.
He is also the driver of the crane when needed. The three other locomotives
as in 2008 were present there, he told us that the remains of 8 will be scrapped, that 9 has a collapsed crown sheet and 4 requires a lot of new stays. 6 is
serviceable and was used in a movie about 2 years ago. He has plans for a tourist operation to Tiwanaku, a popular tourist destination with some ruins about 20 km towards La Paz. To start this he is building a 12 seat draissine, the track will need some work before it can carry
locomotives! It is planned to expand the collection, and electric locomotives from LaPaz are expected to join the collection.
Hunslet 2-8-0 9
Alco 2-8-0 4
La Paz tram
Ruston and Hornsby Oil Engine
Inverted vertical steam engine as back up power.
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