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This station actually consists of two or maybe three stations:



The first is the end of the rails of the branch that begins in Llay Llay and that linked Los Andes with the Santiago-Valparaiso railway through a wide gauge track that reached this city in 1874.



The second is in turn the tip of the rails of the Trasandino Los Andes - Mendoza railway, a metric gauge track built by the brothers Juan and Mateo Clark whose construction began in 1889 and which could only be completed in 1910.



For logical reasons, the meeting point of these two railways quickly became a huge complex around which you could see a feverish activity. There were huge warehouses for the storage of merchandise arriving or beginning its journey to Argentina, bi-lane railway yards (that is, with both lanes at the same time), cranes to change bogies to cars, etc.



In addition, the section corresponding to the Trasandino had a huge warehouse and powerhouse, deposits for water and coal, and later an electrical substation that rectified the electrical energy using rotating rectifiers.



Years later, the transportation of ore from the Saladillo mine, belonging to Codelco's Andina Division, to the smelter located in Ventanas, on the central coast of Chile, joined the railway activity. This made it necessary to build a third station for the transshipment of cylindrical containers (´´ollas´´) from narrow gauge cars to wide gauge cars.





In the andes





Los Andes is located 135 km from Santiago de Chile and 15 km. of San Felipe. It can be reached:



By car:

You must take the North Pan-American Highway.



By Bus:

From Santiago you can get there by buses that leave from Terminal Los Héroes. You can also travel from Valparaíso to Los Andes, you must check with the respective roads.



Today the roads are used to transport mineral from the Saladillo mine, this is the only activity that is maintained and that has prevented this complex from falling into the most complete abandonment and destruction.

The station has been reconditioned as a National and International Rodovia Terminal with modern and comfortable facilities for users, maintaining the original infrastructure in an effort to conserve and promote the cultural heritage of the city of Los Andes.

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