The railroads of the Central Valley are owned by the state and do not pay on account of it. The personnel is large and is made up entirely of political henchmen of the senators and congressmen. The government realizes this and there has been talk of renting the lines or selling them to private companies. This would be good sense. This Central Valley is crossed lengthwise by one main trunk-line touching at the important towns. From these at right angles run branch lines to places of minor importance. Yet so thickly settled is this valley, and so productive is it, that another parallel line from Santiago to Concepcion, touching points not on the government railway, could possibly be made to pay a profit. From Talca it could run southwestward through San Javier, and Cauquenes crossing the coast range between Quirihue and Coelemu at no perceptibly steep grade, opening up a new country, and saving a distance of seventy-five miles between the terminals. The country is mostly level and there would be no difficult engineering feats. The railroad from Santiago to Valparaiso is a roundabout one and crosses the steep mountain pass of Tiltil. For years it has been talked of to shorten this line making it go through Casa Blanca, but the government has had no money for expenditures of such a sort. I have no doubt but that it would give a private company a concession if it meant business. An interurban electric line between these two large cities might pay. It would be eighty-five miles long and would also open up a new country.
Chile is in need of many first-class modern hotels built on the North American style, but not cramped for room like in the United States, and with the guests' rooms large enough for comfort. Santiago, Valparaiso, and Concepcion have good hotels, but in the other cities they are poor. It would not pay a North American to build a hotel south of Concepcion because in that region German influence predominates, and in many places the German population outnumbers that of the native. For years to come after the war the North American would be boycotted there. Antofagasta opens an excellent field in the hotel line. There are four hotels there where it is possible to sleep and eat, but they fall much below the standard for such a busy port. The trade is evenly divided between them, but an up-to-date hostelry could easily shift that to themselves. Arica is badly off in the hotel line. This is the port of La Paz, Bolivia, and traveling men to and from that city are often obliged to put in a few days in this most northern seaport of Chile while waiting for their steamer. Coquimbo, Talca, and Chillán need modern hotels, as well as Los Andes. The latter town which has a population of 8097 is important because it is the jumping-off place for Argentina. The narrow-gauge railroad from there to Mendoza is of such a nature that the trip has to be made in daylight on account of curves, bridges, and steep gradients which would be dangerous to traverse at night. Passengers en route for Argentina leave Santiago and Valparaiso in the evening arriving at Los Andes at night where they stop over, and continue the next morning. The train coming from Argentina arrives at Los Andes at night and as it is sometimes late, passengers prefer to stop over there, continuing to Santiago in the morning, rather than to change trains and arrive at Santiago at an unseemly hour. The only hotel fit to stop at in Los Andes is the poor one owned by the Transandine Railway, and it is nearly always overcrowded. It is a flimsy frame structure, dirty, and with poor service. It is some distance from the main part of the city, but another hotel built in its neighborhood would catch all the transient trade, because most of it focuses there instead of in the town. Rancagua has a floating population comprised of the mining element from the Braden Copper Company. Many of these are North Americans and Canadians, and every day some of them are obliged to stop overnight at Rancagua to get a train out the following day. Also Rancagua is the station for the Baths of Cauquenes to which there is constant journeying to and fro during the summer season. The city has a population of 10,380 irrespective of transient trade with no hotel fit to stop at.
PLAZA PRINGLES
SAN LUIS
ARGENTINE PLAZAS
DRAFTED BY HENRY J. STEPHENS
PLAZA SAN MARTIN
MENDOZA
ARGENTINE PLAZAS
DRAFTED BY HENRY J. STEPHENS
