Heritage route
Maria Fumaça de Tiradentes
São João del-Rei → Tiradentes · Brazil
Maria Fumaça de Tiradentes in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 12 km
- Fastest time
- 35 min
- Average speed
- 21 km/h
- Top speed
- 30 km/h
- Operator
- VLI
- Train
- 19th-century Baldwin steam, 762 mm gauge
- Countries
- Brazil
- In service since
- 1881
- Runs
- Wed–Sun, 1–2× daily
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Baldwin steam locomotives have worked this 76 cm-gauge line ever since Emperor Pedro II opened it in 1881.
Emperor Pedro II rode the first train when the Estrada de Ferro Oeste de Minas opened in 1881, and its 76 cm-gauge Baldwins have been at work between São João del-Rei and colonial Tiradentes ever since. Brazil’s oldest steam service still in regular operation. The half-hour amble follows the Rio das Mortes beneath the Serra de São José escarpment. At the São João roundhouse, locomotives are still turned on the period turntable in what is now a working railway museum.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 3664647 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 4 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: VLI — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- São João del-Rei roundhouse and museum
- Rio das Mortes valley
- Serra de São José escarpment
- Tiradentes’ 1881 station
More heritage routes
- Durango & Silverton
1882 gold-rush narrow gauge: steam-hauled ever since, on the Highline ledge blasted 120 m above the Animas River gorge.
Wikipedia ↗ - La Trochita
Theroux’s Old Patagonian Express: 750 mm gauge, 1922 steam locomotives and wood-stove-heated wooden coaches across the steppe.
Wikipedia ↗ - Sagano Scenic Railway
A retired JR alignment above the Hozugawa rapids: twenty-five slow minutes of maples and gorge that the modern main line skips through tunnels.
Wikipedia ↗ - SL Gunma
Restored D51 498 “Degoichi” and C61 20 haul retro coaches up the Joetsu Line on weekends: steam echoing off the Tone gorge under Tanigawa’s wall.
Wikipedia (JA) ↗
More train routes in Brazil.