“The End of the World.” That’s the way Ushuaia brands itself. Also as the Capital of the Malvinas (Falkland Islands.) It is a beautiful city on Tierra Del Fuego Island but no matter where you look, except straight behind the city, you see Chile. Across the Beagle Channel, Chile, the high mountains to the west, Chile. This seemed to bother our tour guide, but it is one of the reasons the town was founded. After the border was drawn, they wanted a town ‘right there’ to cement their claim, so we have Ushuaia, a city of 82,000 in an absolutely beautiful setting. We arrived just after the first snow on the mountains.

It was started as a political statement, and also as a penal colony. It was designed to reform prisoners through work, especially the really bad ones, or the politicals, like anarchists. That is why it has a railroad, “El Tren del Fin del Mundo.” The train was originally built to take prisoners from the jail to the work camps where they cut wood to build and heat Ushuaia. The populations was about evenly split between prisoners and non-prisoners who were their guards, wardens, service staff, families of guards, their teachers and some released prisoners who liked the place and decided to stay.

The railroad has the tiniest gauge rail line that I have ever seen outside of kiddy ride trains in amusement parks. It is half a meter, or 19 and a half inches. We rode the train 10 years ago and decided to do it again. I love trains. The locomotives are steam and that makes the train a pleasant sensory experience. We were in the first car behind the locomotive and saw the puffs of steam as we rode along.

We could hear the cho cho and smell the steam. The smell was not quite right. I am used to the smell of anthracite on steam locomotives (although the steam locomotive in Skagway burns foul bunker fuel.) These trains burn diesel, it is cleaner for the ride into the Tierra del Fuego National Park. The train stops for about 15 minutes during its hour run to add water to the boiler. This gives us a chance to take a close look at the engine, or to go to the tourist shop. The midway station is the Macarena Station but we did not dance.