Bogie Exchange
The FCAB already interchanged with metre gauge railways running north-south in western Chile, and there was the prospect of connections with lines from Argentina. Thus, in 1913, the FCAB board made a decision to convert the line to metre gauge throughout. Some gauge conversion work was done in 1916, however World War I intervened, and most work was not done till 1928. In the meantime, the railway became proficient in changing bogies on freight cars between gauges at interchange points. Some branch lines and connecting railways were never converted, and continued to operate as 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) gauge railways into the 1960s.
The Bolivian section of the line was taken over by the Bolivian government in 1964, and, in the early 1970s, the Chilean government investigated nationalizing the line. In 1982, control of the company passed on to Chilean interests, and the head office moved from London to Antofagasta. The railway is now a division of Antofagasta PLC, which also has mining interests.
Read more about this topic: Ferrocarril De Antofagasta A Bolivia, History
Famous quotes containing the word exchange:
“Development, it turns out, occurs through this process of progressively more complex exchange between a child and somebody else—especially somebody who’s crazy about that child.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)