São Paulo Railway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sao Paulo Railway (SPR) was a railway company in São Paulo, Brazil.
In 1859, the Barão de Mauá with a group of people convinced the imperial government the importance of the construction of a railroad connecting São Paulo to Porto de Santos. The stretch of 800 meters descending of the mountains was considered impractible and therefore Mauá was behind one of the biggest specialists, the Scotish railroad engineer James Brunlees.
Brunless came to Brazil and considered the viable project, then, it lacked for finding somebody to made use to execute the project. He was with Daniel Makinson Fox, engineer, who had experience in the construction of railroads through mountains of northern Wales and the hillsides of the Pyrenees.
Fox considered that the route that runs through Mountain range would have to be divided in 4 declivities, each one having an 8% inclination. In these stretches, the wagons would be pulled by steel handles. In the end of each declivity, an extension of line of 75 m of length would be constructed, the platform, with a 1,3% inclination. In each one of these platforms, a force and a machine would have mounted the vapor, to promote the traction of the handles.
The proposal was approved by Brunless and a new company was called, the São Paulo Railway - S.P.R.
The road was constructed without the explosive aid, therefore the land was very unstable. The hollowing of the rocks was only made with wedges and pregos. Some embankment were a depth of 20 m. It projected of the tracks against torrential rains and embankments of 3 to 20 m in height had been constrcted, what it consumed 230,000m³ of rock.
The spite of all the difficulties, the construction finished 10 months before the time foreseen in the contract, that was of eight years. The São Paulo Railway was opened to trains on February 16, 1867. Coffee was carried to Porto de Santos, in 1895 if it is initiated construction of a new railroad, parallel to the old one.
For this new track, it used a system Endless Hope, or without-end. In this system, the track was divided in five sections, in each one of them. For each wagon that went up to one another in counterbalance, as in an elevator.
The system of ascent of the mountains was modified in 1970, when the rack system was substituted by a system in which three lines dentated with parallel bars that are made out of tungsten was placed between the tracks, that it became connected in dentated wheels of the locomotive. This system was organized by the Japanese firm Marubeni, and the locomotives had been constructed by Hitachi.
In 1889, the first protests were made against the English monopoly over the route to Porto de Santos, which began the culmination with the construction of Mairinque-Santos in 1910, for Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana.
In September 13, 1946, the railroad was expropriated by the Brazilian government and on September 27, 1948, the Estrada de Ferro Santos-Jundiaí was formed into Rede Ferroviária Federal (RFFSA).
