Qualla: La Trochita https://qualla.com/la-trochita en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:39:57 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: La Trochita https://qualla.com/la-trochita La Trochita: Introduction https://qualla.com/la-trochita/ Paul Theroux rode trains from the snow of Massachusetts all the way to the bottom of Argentina, and when the rails finally ran out, this was where they left him. He titled the 1979 book that followed The Old Patagonian Express, after the slow, spindly steam train that carried him into the foothills of the Andes, the railway, as he put it, almost at the end of the world. Argentines knew it by a fonder name. They called it La Trochita, the little gauge, and against every odd it is still running.

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]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/2/m/7/la-trochita-wp/62m7-la-trochita-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full La Trochita: A Railway That Almost Wasn't https://qualla.com/la-trochita/ The story begins with national ambition and ends in improvisation. In 1908 the Argentine government sketched a grand web of railways across Patagonia, meant to stitch the Andes to the Atlantic ports. Then ministers changed, World War I drained the money and the European engineeri...

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]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/2/m/7/la-trochita-wp/62m7-la-trochita-a-railway-that-almost-wasnt.mp3 0:06 2 full La Trochita: A Thousand Hands in the Wind https://qualla.com/la-trochita/ Building it across the open Patagonian steppe was brutal work. Floods tore out much of the early line in 1931 and 1932, and construction had to begin again. At its peak, a thousand laborers graded the roadbed and laid track through a landscape of wind, dust, and bitter winters, a...

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]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/2/m/7/la-trochita-wp/62m7-la-trochita-a-thousand-hands-in-the-wind.mp3 0:06 3 full La Trochita: Slow Enough to Walk Beside https://qualla.com/la-trochita/ There is a detail in La Trochita's history that captures its character completely. The train wound so tightly through the Andean foothills, and crawled so slowly, that passengers could step down and walk alongside it on certain stretches, then climb back aboard. This was never a ...

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]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/2/m/7/la-trochita-wp/62m7-la-trochita-slow-enough-to-walk-beside.mp3 0:06 4 full La Trochita: Steam Against the Odds https://qualla.com/la-trochita/ Today La Trochita endures as a heritage railway, declared a National Historic Monument by Argentina in 1999. Its roster still includes 22 steam locomotives, Henschels and Baldwins of the Mikado type, most dating to 1922, and there is not a single diesel engine anywhere on the lin...

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]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/2/m/7/la-trochita-wp/62m7-la-trochita-steam-against-the-odds.mp3 0:06 5 full