I was wandering through the art and craft market in El Ejido park, right in the inner-north of Quito. If you’ve got the money, there are some incredible and original paintings on display around the outskirts of the park. I did not, so I was making my way through the centre of the market, where the stallholders are packed tightly together, their wares repetitions of the same styles. You see the same paintings again and again, perhaps better or worse, but basically the same.

I’m not sure why, but a particular design caught my eye—a train chugging away through the sky. Its cargo changed in each iteration (apples, eggs, fish), but the overall theme was the same—train travelling through the sky over mountains, cargo of food onboard, towns and peasants below. The design got me curious, so I asked one of the stallholders about its meaning. He was a young guy working for an association of artists. He said that he thought the train was related to one of Ecuador’s most famous presidents, Eloy Alfaro, and his Liberal Revolution. It symbolised the unification of the country, the joining of the Coast and the Andes.

This Coast/Andes split is felt down the length of the west coast of South America, from Colombia in the north, through to Chile in the south. Yet Ecuador could be the country where this divide is still starkest, the loud, frenetic and yet oddly relaxed atmosphere of la Costa, contrasting with the more reserved, quiet and traditionally conservative atmosphere of the Andes.[1] While the progressive/conservative divide has largely pivoted toward being urban/rural rather than costal/Andean, the difference in the temperament and culture of the two regions is felt in their sights, sounds, smells and flavours.

In fact, the significance of the railway in bringing these two regions together is so great that some, such as Clark, argue that it was essential in creating a “national space”, not just in the sense of a literal connected region, but in conceptually bringing together Ecuador as a whole. Benedict Anderson is a political scientist and historian, famous for his assertion that the nation is an “imagined community”—a group of people we feel we have connections to, despite the fact that it would be impossible to meet all of them. What the Ecuadorian railways provides us with is an interesting example of seeing the construction of this community in practice.

On the 25^th of June 1908, a daughter of Eloy Alfaro (it doesn’t appear to have been recorded which one) drove a final, golden railway spike into the ground. Not long after, the first passenger train to Quito could be seen arriving, covered in flags and palm leaves (to symbolise its arrival from the coast, I assume). Festivities ran high, with church bells ringing until ten o’clock that night. The city filled with foreigners, primarily from Guayaquil, the economic hub of Ecuador. This was Quito’s first tourist boom, and the city wasn’t ready for it. The newspapers lamented that there weren’t even sufficient hotel rooms for all the visitors. Apparently, the main part of the festivities was a mock battle on the outskirts of Quito, using all three of the local garrison’s cannons.

A country (literally) divided

It’s not surprising that the completion of Ecuador’s first railway was a cause for celebration—it would be in any country. But the Guayaquil-Quito railway redefined the nation. It suddenly made travel between the country’s two biggest cities possible year-round. While there are still some places in the world that become inaccessible for extended periods due to the weather, most of us take it as a given that we can basically go where we want, when we want, if we have the money—certainly between the two biggest cities of a country. However, until the completion of the railway, the only road between Guayaquil and Quito took ten to fourteen days to traverse when the weather held out. With the exception of a messenger service, however, this route was impassable for six months of the year. This meant that half the time, the capital of Ecuador was essentially cut off from its richest city and principal trading port.

The difficulty of travel between the two cities is hard to imagine, even during the seasons in which it was possible. In 1880, Edward Whymper, an English mountaineer, was travelling through Ecuador, seeking to climb Chimborazo. In Quito, having travelled there from Guayaquil, he was rebuked by his guide for complaining that the mud had come halfway up the flank of his animals. When asked what he considered to be a bad road, the guide responded that “A road is bad when the beasts tumble into mud-holes and vanish right out of sight.” Although sounding fanciful, Whymper later recounted that he almost saw this happen (p. 187). There are also tales of donkeys with voluminous but light cargoes being thrown into abysses by the wind when traversing the mountain paths.[2]

This created a strange dynamic in Ecuador, still perceptible to this day, where the coast and the sierra almost feel like two different countries. Quito had been an important Incan city, and despite being burned to the ground by the Inca during the war of conquest, was re-founded by the Spanish in 1534. The city rose in prominence, becoming the real audiencia (administrative capital) for the region. This made the city Ecuador’s largest, and the oldest capital city in South America. But its place in the Andes, particularly at equatorial latitudes, meant the city was largely cut-off from external influences. It became a conservative catholic city, with less conspicuous consumption than Guayaquil, due to there literally being fewer consumer goods. The little production in the region was largely dedicated to the internal market.

Guayaquil, on the coast, was the polar opposite. Founded in 1547, and despite being constantly raided by English buccaneers, the city quickly became the principal trading port of the region. This offered the city wealth that far exceeded that of the inland capital and resulted in an outwardly focused attitude. Time and again, Guayaquil would be the site of independence movements against the Spanish crown, until Ecuador was finally liberated in 1822. The last city to be liberated was its conservative capital—Quito.

Ecuadorians appreciated this stark divide, both social and economically. After independence, Guayaquil continued to thrive, being the economic powerhouse of the country. In contrast, after independence, the Andean regions went through a process of “dearticulation, deurbanization, and depopulation” (p. 53). In fact, in the early days of Ecuador’s independence, the southern highlands tended to use Peruvian currency, while Colombian money was used to the north. The country almost dissolved, lacking strong economic and social ties to hold it all together. And it may have indeed dissolved if it weren’t for the strong, nationalising vision of Gabrial Garcia Moreno—the first President to try and build a railway between Guayaquil and Quito.

A slow process

This was not a fast process. Moreno received permission from congress to contract for the railway lines in 1861; however, it was a decade before any plans were made. At the time of Moreno’s assassination in 1875, only 45km of track had been laid. Our previous friend Whymper decided to take this train when returning to Guayaquil. Arriving at the station in Chimbo he found that “The Railway was hidden away in jungle, and had to be discovered” (p. 389, original emphasis). There was no building, merely a line that ran up to the edge of a stream, without any stops to prevent the train from running into the water. The only signs of life was a shed, mounted on wheels. Someone was found who told the party “that a train might arrive to-day, or perhaps it would come mañana.” (p. 389). The train finally did arrive that day, depositing three people and nothing more. Needless to say, this was not a venture to unite a nation.

Another 14 miles of track was laid in “the late eighties”,[3]  but the task of completing the railway fell to Moreno’s fiercest opponent[4]—Eloy Alfaro. The latter is a fascinating character in his own right, and well worth a blog post. Nevertheless, it would be Alfaro’s name that would forever by synonymous with the railway in Ecuador, his unbridled enthusiasm for it largely accounted for its final success, even at the expense of the nation. In fact, Alfaro was so keen to see the railway completed that he had 600 tons of rails imported before it could be approved by the national assembly.

Nevertheless, while the contract drawn up to construct the railway shouldn’t have broken the bank, in practice, as one historian has put it “transactions on the part of the contractors… do not measure up to the highest business ethics.” (p. 71) In short, Archer Harman, the American contracted to construct the railway had a nice little scam going. The agreement was that he and his associates would found the Guayaquil-Quito railway company. They would construct said railway in exchange for the rights to run it for 75 years. There was a catch, however. The Ecuadorian government was to guarantee the profitability of the enterprise. Construction costs were paid by the company. Operating costs were supposed to come out of revenue. Archer and his associates subcontracted swathes of the work on the railways to companies they were stockholders in, paying exorbitant fees for the services. Therefore, they raked in the profits from these contracting companies, while the Ecuadorian government simply had to pay up, to make sure the railway company didn’t make a loss.

Harman would not have long to enjoy his gains however. In 1911, a mere six months after retiring from this position as the president of the Guayaquil-Quito railway company, he was thrown from his horse, dashing his head against a rock and dying almost instantly. I unfortunately can’t find a reliable source to confirm it, but supposedly it was his favourite horse, whose name was ‘Ecuador’. Justice delivered by horseback.

Nevertheless, the project was completed under Harman’s stead, having traversed some impressive terrain. The railway was routed along the Chanchán River, which it had to cross 26 times. It then ascended 3,050 meters in an 80km stretch, utilising switchback after switchback, in a portion infamously known as the Devil’s Nose, before finally making its way through the Sierra to Quito.

Decline and (touristy) rebirth

While the railway only ever made a profit for a few years during the 1920s and 1940s, it cannot be overstated the importance it played in making Ecuador a national whole. The train did not just move goods for commerce and aid in migration—it began the process of evening out the social dynamics of the entire area. Blank newspaper print was transported at the lowest rate, while newspaper vendors were allowed to travel for free. Each daily newspaper had free use of the telegraph next to the track for up to 200 words per day. Similarly, at the time of the railway’s completion a minimum wage in the highlands was set at 20 cents per day, while on the coast it was established at 80 cents. Over the intervening period, as labour was able to move around the country, these differentials would eventually flatten out.

Nevertheless, the lines proved too expensive to maintain, and little by little the services were slowly cut. After a steady decline, all train services ended in the 1990s. Eventually, segments of the line were reopened as a tourist attraction in 2008, and today the only lines running are tourist trains (though pretty spectacular, if you’re passing through!). If the trains were the driving force toward creating a unified national territory, then what it means that they’re now primarily for the enjoyment of tourists is difficult to say. If nations are imagined communities, as per Benedict Anderson, then for a time the train from Guayaquil to Quito was central to that imaginary. It may not have lasted, and other things may well have taken its place, but vestiges of its central role in the creation of a nation can still be seen in craft markets throughout Ecuador, making their way across the sky, carrying their oversized cargoes.

Bibliography

NB: Unfortunately, writing about a slightly obscure topic in a small country very much limited my sources. I therefore relied overly much on Clark (though it is an excellent book, and I would recommend it). I attempted to chase up as many of his sources where possible, and search for my own, but the sources were unfortunately more limited than this bibliography implies.

Anderson, Benedict RO 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, New York.

Clark, A Kim 1998. The Redemptive Work: Railway and Nation in Ecuador, 1895-1930, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland.

Crespo Ordóñez, Roberto 1933. Historia del Ferrocarril del sur, Imprenta Nacional, Quito.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica 2019. Quito, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., London.

Loewenfeld, Eva 1946. “The Guayaquil and Quito Railway, Ecuador“, The Southwestern Social Science Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 68-93.

Whymper, Edward 1892. Travels amongst the great Andes of the equator, J. Murray, London.

Wiles, Dawn Ann 1971. Land Transportation Within Ecuador, 1822-1954, PhD Dissertation, LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses.

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[1] It was only recently that the Amazon has become populated in any major sense; hence it has generally been left out of most accounts of the national culture until recently. During the time of the construction of the railway, the few existing trails were only passable on foot, with the wealthy being carried by Indigenous Ecuadorians.

[2] The anecdote actually comes from an old Ecuadorian history journal, but I’ve not been able to find a copy available to read, unfortunately.

[3] As in 1880s. You’ve got to love when “the 80s” refers to the century before.

[4] Well, apart from the man who killed him.