The Putagán—Colbún railway, locally known as the Tren Chico (Small Train), was a long narrow gauge railway that operated between the communities of Yerba Buenas and

Colbún Colbún (Mapudungun: "Cleaning of the land") is a Chilean town and commune in Linares Province, Maule Region. The commune has a population of over 17,000 inhabitants and covers an area of , making it the province's largest. Its capital, the town ...

in the province of Linares in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

. It was in existence between 1914 and 1956. Parts of the former trackbed were converted to roads, the L215 and L11.

History

Since the early twentieth century plans were made to build a railroad that would connect local communities in the province of Linares with the national rail network, especially the village of

Panimávida Panimávida (in Mapudungun: "hill of pumas") is a town in the Chilean commune of Colbún, Linares Province, Maule Region. Panimávida is well known in Chile for being one of the oldest hot springs A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geo ...

with its famous

hot springs A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by c ...

. Construction finally started in 1910 and was finished in 1913. Operations started the following year. On October 9, 1953 a serious accident occurred near Yerba Buena when a rural bus crashed into a train, leaving 22 people dead and many injured in one of Chile's worst train disasters ever.Recuerdo de una tragedia (Spanish)
Retrieved march 4, 2012 Due to this tragedy and road improvements between

and Yerba Buenas, with competition of minibuses and taxis as a result, operations finally ceased in 1956.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Putagan-Colbun railway 600 mm gauge railways in Chile Railway lines in Chile