I think it would be a great idea, and a lot of fun. I illustrated the route here in pencil. (By the way, I drew this map freehand.) There would be a big route that includes the far southern capitals, and a smaller route that cuts through Bolivia and Paraguay. The train would have a bike path running along its entire length, as well as regularly-spaced trees to keep the bicyclists and the train passengers cool. The trees would be native to South America, to whichever region the train happens to be passing through.
With this train, anybody who lives in any South American country can travel to their capital, hop on a train, and do a ring around the entire continent in either direction. The South American countries have been working on an agreement called Unasur that will apparently open up the continent and make travelling easier without a passport - so maybe these people can help me finance this train.
I don't think a high-speed train is necessary, a regular-speed train will probably work fine. I estimate the whole ride will last one or two weeks, but of course people could get off at any point to explore at any country. This will also facilitate the movement of people between the countries, and improve relations in the region. It will also create jobs.
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| The tracks would have a bike path and lots of native trees to shade the train cars and the bikes. This illustration is no to scale; there would be more space and maybe a barrier separating the bikes from the train. |
The train should stay out of the Amazon as much as possible; that's really important. After it leaves Brasilia it will hug the coast as it goes through the Guyanas. One of the Guyanas is technically part of France, but I see no reason why France, as long as it's down there, should not participate in South American regional projects. Also, nobody really knows anything about the Guyanas, so it would be a really interesting region to travel through.
Does Bolivia has two capitals? After doing some research for this project, I discovered that Bolivia has an unusual situation. The constitution says that the capital is Sucre, but many of the major government buildings are in La Paz. Apparently this is a huge conflict in Bolivia which occasionally leads to violent outbreaks. People in Sucre want the government buildings to move to Sucre, but people in La Paz are worried that it would cause economic problems. After an outbreak in 2008, Evo Morales signed a new constitution which again declared that Sucre is the only capital of Bolivia, but that the government buildings would remain in La Paz. Neither side was really appeased by this move, and so animosity continues. I don't have a dog in this fight, so I've included both La Paz and Sucre in my train route.
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| The original concept |
If you are either interested in helping me build this train, know anything about building new trains, or have the money to finance this project, feel free to contact me. If this project is successful I'm interested in building another train that connects all the Eurasian capitals, and another one that connects all the African capitals.
If there's a bike trail encircling South America (or whichever continent), people will want to ride it for the same reason they climb Mount Everest - because it's there.
