Little Trains to Faraway Places

3. Magic at Morro Grande (1984)

• magic at morro grande M orro Grande. Now that’s a name to savor. When I looked at a map of    Brazil’s meter-gauge Teresa Cristina Railway , it jumped off the page, sorting itself out from the other placenames : Tubarão, Pineirinho, Içara, Jaguaruna, Capivari, Imbituba. For one thing, it had a reassuringly familiar look and sound to it—no perplexing diacritics or Portuguese inflections, odd to the ear of    English speakers. For another, it had ready-made narrow-gauge resonances, thanks to the Denver & Rio Grande. But when Laurel and I visited in March 1984, Morro Grande had more than just its handle to recommend it. The little village straddling the tracks of   the Teresa Cristina, though unexceptional in social or economic terms, was special in railroading. Not that there was much rail plant—just a passing track, a square, yellowish stucco station with wide eaves, and a concrete barrel of    a water tank completely lacking in aesthetic appeal. But that was enough. The gritty, coal-smoky magic of   Morro Grande was really a distillation of   the wonder of   the entire Teresa Cristina Railway: the Estrada de Ferro Doña Teresa Cristina, a roughly 100-mile-long (including branches), ex3 Book 1.indb 33 2/16/10 8:48:24 AM .34. clusively coal-hauling, mostly steam-powered, no-nonsense railroad in an unremarkable part of   southern Brazil. There was nothing effete about this line except its name, which honors the wife of   Dom Pedro II, Brazil’s last emperor, whose reign was peaceful and prosperous. What raised the Teresa Cristina from the obscurity in which it once labored and brought it to the general notice of   steam enthusiasts in the United States was its locomotive roster. For years, the stalwarts of   the railroad were handsome 174-ton Alco and Baldwin 300-class 2-10-4s’s, which numbered 13 when I went calling , with one lost earlier in a wreck. This army of   Texas types was hale and hearty then, but not long afterwards they were decimated by a pernicious plague of   firebox cracks and all removed from service, replaced by a fleet of    General Electric diesels. I had been, in fact, just in time. Testimony to the then-booming coal business, and all the more significant in light of   the subsequent failure of   the 2-10-4’s, had been the 1978 acIt ’s a busy day at Pineirinho Yard, where coal hoppers are gathered to be forwarded on to Tubarão and then to the port at Imbituba. l i t t l e t r a i n s t o f a r a w a y p l a c e s Book 1.indb 34 2/16/10 8:48:26 AM .35. quisitionof   12 2-10-2’sfromArgentina,mostof   thembuiltinCzechoslovakia by Skoda in 1949 for Argentina’s Ferrocarril Nacional General Belgrano. Just two had been built in 1937 in Germany by Henschel, after a Baldwin prototype from 1921, which explains the class’s American appearance. Eventually all 12 would be overhauled, converted from oil-burning to coal, and placed in service on the Teresa Cristina as Nos. 400–411. The 2-10-2’s had attracted attention and photographers before going to Brazil, for amongtheirassignmentson the Belgranohadbeentackling thefamousRamalC -14 linetoChile,withitsswitchbacks,spiralloops,and14,680foot -elevation crossing of   the Andes at Chorrillos Pass. The Santa Fe types faced no similar challenges in their new home in Brazil. There they were just role players in a workaday routine that had become for American enthusiasts one of   the most charismatic and nostalgic steam shows in the world. Here is the stage on which that show played. Dating from 1884, an even century before I found it, the Teresa Cristina ran across southern Brazil from the seaport of   Imbituba for 76 miles to the most distant mine at Rio Fiorita. The heart of   the railroad was the small city of   Tubarão, roughly halfway between Imbituba and Pineirinho Yard, which is on the outskirts of   the city of    Criciúma. “Pino” Yard was the marshalling point for loaded hoppers coming in from three mine branches that radiated from it, including the one to Rio Fiorita. Although slim-gauge, largely steam-powered, and short, the Teresa Cristina was unmistakably big-time. In fact, it boasted the highest tonnageper -milefigureof   anycomponentof   thenationalsystem,theRedeFerroviaria Federal S.A. (RFFSA), of   which it had become a part...