The toughest place to be a train driver
By Eamonn Walsh BBC News
It takes both skill and courage to control huge locomotives laden with mineral ore as they wind up and down the Andes mountains - making Peru possibly the toughest country in the world to be a train driver.
The Ferrocarril Central Andino (FCCA) travels from sea level to the mines at Cerro de Pasco, one of the highest cities in any country, at 14,200ft (4,330m) above sea level.
The ascent, on some of the steepest tracks in the world, is a slow grind, but the real skill is in bringing the fully loaded locomotive back down to the Pacific coast, west of the capital Lima.
"You need to have nerves of steel," says driver Daniel Garcia Zegarra. "This is how you need to treat the train, caress it little by little, no roughness, but slowly."
Up in the mountains, the railway tracks have few signals or even safety barriers to guard against the sheer drop. The slightest error from a driver could prove disastrous.
"The train would derail and go down the cliff," says Ameliano, the train's brequero, or brake man, who has the crucial role of adjusting the large mechanical brakes.
The rear wagons of the 200m-long train are often out of the driver's sight as the route zig-zags, and its weight when fully laden with trucks and cargo can approach 2,500 tons. There is a constant fear of derailing and falling down the mountainside.
"Once the brakes failed," says Ameliano. "We ended up travelling at 130km/h. We crashed into a tunnel.
"I took cover in the second wagon and I survived. The driver died, jumping out as the train derailed."
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