Machu Picchu Railway

The route

This is the only railway access to Machu Picchu. The line belongs to the old Cusco–Santa Ana railway, authorised in 1907 and built to a narrow gauge of 3 ft (914 mm) instead of the 2 ft 6 in first planned. Its engineer was Mauro Valderrama. The first section opened in the early 1920s, and the line was pushed down the Urubamba valley to Aguas Calientes, 113 km from Cusco, in the late 1920s.

Aguas Calientes did not exist before the railway: it grew from a construction camp, and the town still has no road connection. The line later continued into the jungle and reached Quillabamba in 1978, but landslides led to its abandonment beyond Hidroeléctrica in 1998, and landslides cut the line again at the start of 2010.

Today PeruRail and Inca Rail run tourist trains on it. From Cusco the line climbs out of the city by a series of switchbacks before heading to Poroy and Ollantaytambo, where many travellers board for the run down the valley to Machu Picchu Pueblo.

What to watch for

1. A town built by the railway

   At the start, look at how Aguas Calientes is packed into the valley floor around the tracks. A few farming families lived here in 1901, but the town grew from the railway workers' camp of the 1920s. Its Spanish name means hot waters, after the natural baths that floods destroyed and the town later rebuilt.

2. Narrow gauge on a river shelf

   Notice how close the track runs to the river and how little flat ground the valley leaves for it. The line was built to 3 ft (914 mm) gauge rather than the 2 ft 6 in first planned. In this terrain landslides have closed it several times: in 1998 they ended traffic beyond Hidroeléctrica for good, and in early 2010 they cut the line again.

3. Arriving at Ollantaytambo

   Ollantaytambo was Pachacuti's royal estate and later the base from which Manco Inca resisted the Spanish, defeating an expedition in 1537 by flooding the plain. Its cut-stone terraces were built to a higher standard than most Inca farming terraces, and the town lies on the way to the start of the Inca Trail.

What you will see

The video, uploaded in 2019 by The Longest Journey, is filmed from the cab on the return run: it leaves Machu Picchu Pueblo station in Aguas Calientes, the small town on the river at about 2,040 m below the ruins, and heads upstream.

For the whole journey the track follows the Urubamba, called the Vilcanota in its upper reaches, through a narrow, steep-sided valley between Andean ridges. With no road beside most of this stretch, the railway is the valley's lifeline, carrying both visitors and supplies.

As the valley opens out near the Sacred Valley the train comes to Ollantaytambo, where the run ends. The Inca terraces of the town climb the hillsides above the station area.

Station by station

1. Machu Picchu Pueblo (Aguas Calientes)Terminus at about 2,040 m in a town that began as a camp for the railway's builders and still has no road link. Minibuses brought in by train carry visitors 6 km up to the ruins.
2. OllantaytamboInca town in the Sacred Valley, rebuilt by Pachacuti as a royal estate in the 15th century. Its station is the main boarding point for Machu Picchu trains and the place where the video ends.

Riding it for real

PeruRail runs Expedition, Vistadome and Vistadome Observatory trains between Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu Pueblo, as well as the Belmond Hiram Bingham, and Inca Rail runs its own services on the same track. Regular trains take roughly an hour and a half to just over two hours, depending on the departure. Check PeruRail or Inca Rail for current timetables and fares.

The video is embedded from YouTube and remains on its owner’s channel. Views count toward the original video.