The route traversed by the central highway with some modifications is feasible for a railway. The government recognized this, and under the authority conferred by the law of 1904 put surveyors in the field to determine which is the most practicable and cheapest in the engineering sense of several alternative routes. The reasonable belief is that the distance to be covered need not exceed 250 miles, at a maximum cost of $10,000,000. The calculation made by Monsieur A. Plane, the representative of French commercial societies who studied the region with a view to determining the prospective capacity of the rubber production, was $13,000,000.[9] But this was a general estimate and not an engineering reconnaissance. While it would not pay at once as a commercial proposition, he believed that the government would be justified in undertaking it. Some of the estimates have been as low as $7,500,000. Unquestionably the Peruvian government can afford, though not in a short period, to spend $10,000,000 or $11,000,000 to secure this connection to the forest regions and the development of the rubber and other resources which lie there. The rich Chanchamayo valley is within the zone of productive tropical agriculture and offers an incentive to colonization. The settlement of the boundary dispute with Brazil regarding the frontier territory is a further motive for securing transportation facilities for that portion of the region which may be conceded to Peru, and for improving the unsatisfactory navigation of the Ucayali and its tributaries.
9 Le Perou, par Auguste Plane, Paris, 1903.
When the government took measures for bringing the Pichis line within the sphere of early realization, representatives of the northern Departments sought to secure similar advantages for their localities which had been reconnoitred by Von Hassel and other explorers. Various surveys were ordered, and concessions in force were amplified.
A project related to the central highway is that which contemplates prolonging the short spur of railway which runs from Chimbote so that it will reach Recuay, 137 miles from the coast, and then some point on the Cerro de Pasco line. The mineral deposits which exist along this proposed route include anthracite coal, and are exceedingly rich, but heretofore they have not been alluring enough to draw the full amount of the capital needed for the railroad construction. When the central highway is converted into a railroad, the connection of Cerro de Pasco with Recuay will be more easily secured, and the Amazon region and the Ucayali basin may obtain an outlet to the seaboard through Chimbote as well as through Callao. Another route which has received official sanction is from Cerro de Pasco to Huanuco and beyond, following the course of the river Huallaga along the Pan-American location.
An American company, the Pacific, which had valuable mining and railway concessions in the North, and which among alternative routes had made engineering reconnaissances for a line from Pacasmayo through to the affluents of the Amazon, secured additional exclusive privileges of navigation and exploitation of the rivers.[10] However, the selection of Paita as the seaport is more probable, and the government authorized a liberal law for this location, though the terms did not carry a financial guaranty. The project of a railway from Paita to the Falls, or Pongo of Manserriche, has captivated the imagination of the explorers and engineers who have reconnoitred this route to the Amazon, and who have foreseen the certainty of an outlet to the Pacific as one result of the Panama Canal. Large vessels navigate the Marañon 425 miles above Iquitos.
10 Under the terms of the concession the Pacific Company was given the right to construct branch lines north to Ecuador and south to latitude 10°, along with trading and water rights on the Amazon and its tributaries. Construction of the railroad lines was to begin in 1907 and to be completed within ten years.
The railroad necessary to connect the Pongo de Manserriche or Borja with Piura and Paita would be less than 400 miles. The extension of cotton cultivation in Piura might prove of more utility in securing the railroad than the iron ore deposits, the commercial value of which capitalists may distrust. An advantage of this route is that the engineering difficulties are not serious, and the highest pass to be surmounted is not more than 7,200 feet. By one survey the Marañon is 310 miles from Paita, though this is at a point above the Falls of Manserriche, the power from which it is proposed to utilize for electric traction. The railroad now covers the distance from Paita to Piura, and leaves the following distances along the proposed location:
| Miles | |
|---|---|
| Piura to Vinces | 30.0 |
| Vinces to Chalaco | 30.0 |
| Chalaco to Cumbicus | 19.5 |
| Cumbicus to Huancabamba | 27.0 |
| Huancabamba to Tabaconas | 30.0 |
| Tabaconas to Tambo-botija | 25.5 |
| Tambo-botija to Perico | 34.0 |
| Perico to Jaen | 42.0 |
| Jaen to Bellanista | 12.0 |
| Total | 250.0 |
Whenever this rail connection from Paita to the navigable waters of the Marañon shall be made, Iquitos will be at least 1,000 miles nearer to New York by way of the Pacific and the Panama Canal than by the Amazon and the Atlantic.
Other tentative locations are one from the port of Eten through Jaen to Bellanista on the Marañon, about 240 miles, and from Salaverry via Cajamarca to Balzas on the Marañon, 200 miles. From through Suchiman to the Huallaga River are several trails which make the distance about 185 miles. From Pacasmayo several engineering reconnaissances have been made. One of these through Cajamarca reaches the Marañon at Balzas over a route which is asserted to be only 138 miles in length. Other routes vary from 140 to 150 miles. But it is to be remembered that Balzas is farther than Bellanista above the Falls of Manserriche, that is to say, above the waters of the Marañon open to steam navigation.