The devil's nose

in travel •  6 years ago 

One fun fact that not that many people know regarding Riobamba, the city I'm in at the moment, is that the train tracks built here are among the most difficult in the world. As it turns out it was extremely hard to build, but as you probably can imagine, they've been functioning for generations without much hiccups.

It's funny how these types of facts, how this information about this country was never that relevant to me when I was younger, but as I grew older, not only curiosity moved into my brain, but also a sense of admiration and appreciation.

From the title of this post, you might be able to deduce the portion of the train track that is somewhat infamous for how it was built, is called the devil's nose. Interesting name no doubt, but this being a country with a deep religious background, it's not really that surprising. The locals even have a dance where they disguise themselves as little devil's and parade the streets.

At any rate, I think today I'm going to head to the bottom of the volcano. I'll take some pictures as well.

@meno

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Shows the power of perspective as we mature in life! I have now started to think about the places I never went back in my life!

Posted using Partiko iOS

That's a beautiful steam engine! I'm guessing that it runs on narrow gauge track. The South American narrow gauge railroads are at least as interesting as the North American ones. In some cases, such as this railroad, the terrain was a lot more difficult to deal with than in places like Colorado.

Look up the devil's nose on Google. It was pretty cray cray

Posted using Partiko Android

What made the track so difficult to build in that particular location?

Best summary I found:

The biggest complication faced by the construction of the Trans-Andean railroad was the Devil’s Nose, a mountain with almost perpendicular walls. To overcome this obstacle a zigzag railroad was bulit that climbs more than 500 meters in less than 12,5 km with steep ascents and descents. It today remains an impressive piece of engineering.

Posted using Partiko Android

Yeah, that does sound a little rough, haha.

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