Covered hopper

Why the narrow guage? I really don't understand the whole narrow guage concept; especially in this case whereby the car isn't any thinner by having smaller trucks. My life of disillusion is closing in!

EFVM is the oldest railroad in Brazil still in operation. It was opened in 1904. In that time, narrow gauge were common, like in US too. Brazil has meter gauge line as the biggest part of its network, so its a bit difficult to change all the tracks to broad gauge. EFVM has about 900 km long. Also, the line was built in a land where it was a bit difficult or use broad gauge, because it run along rivers and throught narrow valleys. Today EFVM proved narrow gauge can be profitable, because it is the main railroad in the coutry. Ifn fact, at EFVM we can see the huge iron ore train with 320 cars pulled by just 3 dash 9. if you have a chance to visit Brazil and stay face to face to EFVM you will recognize that EFVM is a great railroad.

Sorry for the questions Pedrop, but how to they not derail going around sharp, or any curve for that matter ? How fast do they run trains ?

Wow that is tiny !

This is a great question. EFVM has a very good line today, with large curves . The iron ore trains run about 70 km/h. The passenger ones run almost 100 km/h. But FCA is also meter gauge and has very narrow curves. The cars run about 20 to 30 km/h on some hills.

Have been enjoying your photos of Brazilian RR's. In spite of previous poster's comments, I think it's great that a narrow gauge road is successful in this day and age, but those wide-cab GE's with the B+B B+B trucks ARE a little funky looking.