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During 1910, three São Paulo entrepreneurs decided to build a rail line to bring lime into the city. This was a period before the manufacture of Portland cement had commenced. The limestone deposits and the lime kilns
were north of São Paulo in the direction of Campinas. Possibly to make the project more appealing to the government authorities, who could grant the concession, they also applied to build a line to Pirapora. This was the
location of shrines which were visited by a large number of worshippers on
the holy days.
The line was to start at Perus which was on the broad gauge trunk line which linked the port of Santos with Sao Paulo and continued north to
Jundiai. Here it met the broad gauge Companhia Paulista which served the
northern part of the state. The lime kilns were on a large portion of land
owned by Dr. Jambeiro. This area was separated from the trunk line
railroad by a range of hills. To get from Perús, just over the northern
boundary of Sao Paulo to the kiln area, involved descending into the
valley of the Rio Juqueri. Without doubt the 23 5/8" gauge was chosen on
the basis of the cost of construction.
There existed a place right up to the day the line ceased operation in February 1983, a place cal led Entroncamento. Entroncamento means junction
and it was the place where the branch would have left.
The line was built almost due east descending on a steep grade to the level of the river. At the bottom of the grade sidings and a wye were
constructed. The grade was against the loaded trains going to Perus.
While, perhaps, this was not an obstacle with the original locomotives and comparatively light loads it later required helpers or splitting the traim in two. At Rilometer 15.5 the line turned north and crossed Rio Juqueri. The track then wound around a hill to Gato Preto to the shops, with a branch going north again, to more kilns and the original quarry. It is said that there were a total of eight kilns served by the line.
To start the line, four locomotives were imported from Baldwin. There were two 4-6-O and two 2-4-O. This was certainly more than adequate for a line of 12 miles in length and makes one believe that they really intended to go to Pirapora which would have brought passenger traffic. A letter in Baldwin's files indicates that at some time prior to 1920 the two 4-6-O
were sold to a coal hauler down south which regauged them to l000 mm. Moving the wheels from inside the frames to outside the frames would have accomplished this widening. This now left the two 2-4-O. These engines would have worked the mainline.
They then bought four second hand tank engines of the 5 to 8 ton. class.
The track at the kilns was on three levels. At the top level was the place where the limestone was charged into the kiln. The next level down was the firewood level. Finally at the ground leveI was the location where the finished lime was loaded. The little tank engines would have worked
between the quarry and the kiIns. They had coupler pockets for the link and pin couplers at the
height of the standard Decauville cars.
1920 marked the construction of a Portland cement mill at Perus. lt was built by the Brazílian Portland Cement Company which was a Canadian company. The cement company evidently looked at the motley collection of little tank engines and decided to buy their own motive power. They chose Alco-Cooke 2-4-2 saddle tank engines buying four initially and later another from Alco-Montreal. These engines carried their own company's name and were numbered from 1 to 5. Thus these numbers were duplicated by the railroad's locomotives which would be a mere detail on a two-footer.The modern cement mill consumed limestone at a far greater rate than the old lime kilns. One lime kiln survived in operation until the mid 1970s.
For the cement mill a new quarry was established at Cajamar. Again the
line had another grade, out of Cajamar, which was against loaded trains.
For the new mill the cement company bought steel rock cars from the Magor
Car. Co. in New Jersey. These were equipped with small sized automatic
couplers. They had a slotted knuckle for all of the locomotives retained the old link and pin couplers. For some obscure reason these cars were bought from Orenstein & Koppel.
With the increase in main line traffic and the increased weight of the trains, the railroad company scrounged around for additional two-foot locomotives. These were available from the main line companies which had built two-foot feeder lines into the coffee growing areas. As an interesting aside it should be noted that Brazilian coffee production in a period of 100 years moved in a great arc, starting north of Rio de Janeiro, moving counter-clockwise, skipping the State of Minas Gerais into the State of São Paulo, and from there into the State of Parana. In each case this movement left behind railroads with no traffic. Either the two-foot feeder line was abandoned or widened to meter gauge.
After the two original 2-4-0 were gone, the line subsisted on not less than 14 second-hand locomotives. These lasted for more than 60 years. Only when the boiler shell became too thin was the engine laid aside. The shop at Gato Preto had only simple equipment. They patched up the engines which had been in minor wrecks. Parts from engines taken out of service were used to keep others running. Minor maintenance was promptly done. Tires were changed, side rod brasses kept tight, pistons packed, the little jobs which prevented major breakdowns.
The last new motive power were two H. K. Porter 2-6-2 bought by the cement company during 1945. Later these were converted to oil firing with primitive burners which produced more black smoke than heat. The greasy oil smoke was a boon to the photographer.
Less sophisticated developing countries confiscate foreign companies assets. The procedure in Brazil was to impose price control and hold the
price of a company's services below the cost of production. By this means
the entire railroad system, the lines which were not government owned from the start, were taken over either by the state or federal government. Price controls on cement forced the Canadian cement company to sell out in 1951.
São Paulo continued to develop rapidly. Taxes on underdeveloped property were higher than on property where there was a building. Theoretically this was done to curb speculation. Actually it caused a rash of construction. This was coupled with fantastic inflation which caused people to look for something tangible in which to invest. The cement business boomed and the mill added two more rotary kilns. The railroad was never busier.
Enroute from Perus to Cajamar the track crossed under the main highway to Campinas and the interior of the State. This route was heavily traveled. Few, if any, of the motorists were aware of the railroad beneath. The shop area at Gato Preto was visible from this highway. No one bothered to look. It is almost certain that the inhabitants of São Paulo did not know that a piece of Iiving history existed almost within the city limits.
A train consisted of eighteen steel dump cars, an occasional tank car of fuel oil or diesel oil, now and then an old wooden box car, and a passenger car. The steel dump cars were built by Magor in the USA, but carry an Arthur Koppel - USA plate in addition to the Magor plate. The four old wooden passenger cars were lettered E.F.P.P. in yellow.
There are no power brakes. Engines were fitted with a steam brake on the driving wheels. The steel dump cars have standard miniature American automatic couplers; but the locomotives have only link and pin couplers.
The dump car couplers have a slotted knuckle and a Iink is used between them and the engine. A piece of chain held by a bolt to the knuckle of the last dump car was the tenuous connection of the passenger car to the train.
The train pulls out through a gate at the west end of the mill and stops with the passenger car opposite a shelter for this is now the passenger station. The passengers are either company employeees, the few people who live along the line or those going to Cajamar who are attracted by the fare which is zero.
You could ride the 20 km length of the line free if you did not mind the hard wooden seats in the passenger car or the jerks when the passenger car is snapped into motion by the siack chain. Leaving the mill there is a steep, about 3%, grade winding descent into the valley of the Rio Juqueri. There are deep cuttings on curves through the laterite until the track gains the water level at "Corredor". "Corredor" consists ot three sidings, a wye, and a block telephone - nothing more.
These sidings exist because a train with eighteen loaded cars of rock cannot climb the grade to the mill with one engine. If a road engine is available at the mill, it runs light to "Corredor", couples to the train engine and amid clouds of thick, biack, greasy smoke, the two engines take the train up the hill at 10 k/h. When another road engine is not available, half the cars of rock are left on one of "Corredor's" sidings. When the first half of the train arrives at the mill, the engine returns
for the other half.
The track now follows the winding Rio Juqueri. To avoid major earthworks, there are a
succession of short up and down grades. To the north the slopes are covered with pine or eucalyptus planted by the Cia Melhoramentos de Sao Paulo which owns a large paper mill, at Caieiras [means lime kilns - there used to be a 1050 mm gauge line at their paper mill with Krauss steam engines second hand from the São Paulo streetcar system (see more in Santo Amaro Tramway)], to the north of Perus. This mill had a 1050 mm gauge line of its own which changed to diesel traction during 1948-1949. The paper mill wastes find their way into the Rio Juqueri and have turned the water black.
The next siding is simply called "Kilometer 8" and consists of one passing track and a block telephone and the track is squeezed between the river and steep hills to the south.
The train crew consists of three men: the engineer, fireman and one brakeman. When the train arrives at a siding, it stops and one member of the crew telephones the traffic controller who either tells them to proceed or wait for an opposing train.Between terminals the brakeman has little to do beyond talking to the passengers unless the train breaks in two. This is not an infrequent occurrence. When this happens, he sets the hand brakes on the rear portion and waits for the engine and front portion to retum. He recouples the two halves and the train is off again.
A few kilometers beyond "Km. 8", the track passes through a deep cut and then under the main road, the Via Anhanguera, which leads to Campinas. Now the valley broadens out a little and we come to the next siding, called "Km 12".
The track crosses the Rio Juqueri on a concrete bridge and turns north. If you buy the latest map from the best map store in Sao Paulo, it shows a station near here called "Entroncamento". This is where the junction was to be for the line towards Pirapora. There is no sign of a station nor is the junction visible.
The 1945 edition of the Guia Levi - the timetable of all Brazilian railroads - shows one round trip per day on the E. F. Perus-Pirapora. The train "M-3" left Perus at 08:45, the Cement Mill at 09:05 and arrived at Entroncamento at 09:48. In the reverse direction, the train "M-2" Left Entroncamento at 16:05, the mill at 16:51 and arrived at Perus at 16:54.
The siding at "Mirim" is in relatively open country and a short distance further on at KM 18("Rocha") is the junction with the line to Gato Prêto.There is a large yard at Cajamar which is located in a wide, for this area, valley and here the road engine uncouples and turns on the wye. The passenger car is uncoupled and switched out of the way by nº 1, the other working Alco 2-4-2T. With this completed, nº 1 and nº 14, a Baldwin 2-6-2TT, couple to the rear of the train and with wide open throttles, tear through the yard gaining speed for the steep grade into the quarry area.
Next to the small car repair facility and the wood yard, where they saw up scrub for the lime kiln at Gato Prêto, is Cajamar's treasure house of derelict locomotives. There are American, Canadian, French and German specimens in various states of decomposition and for the railroad historian, every locomotive has its builders plates intact.
If we retum to Kilometer 18(Rocha), there is a facing junction, going in the direction of Perús,
with the line to Gato Preto. There is a switch and a telephone, nothing more. There are no signs of a wye or other sidings. This line is 5 km. in length and about one half a kilometer from the end a line diverges to the left and climbs the face of the hill as it and the Iower line make a sweeping 150º curve. Three-quarters of the distance around the bend there is another line which goes off to the left and it, too, starts to ascend.
The first line which diverges is the line to the top of the lime kilns and the second reaches the level of the bottom of the conical kiln which is the firing level. On the top level the remaining kiln is charged with small four wheel one cubic meter capacity side dump cars of the Decauville type. Wood is brought from Cajamar on standard flat cars which have two four wheel trucks.
The repair shop at Gato Prêto was a fascinating place. The locomotives at the shop varied each time you visited. Once nº 2 was there with the pilot beam torn off and the headlight bracket bent skyward due to collision. Lying around are an assortment of parts, driving wheels, rods and just junk which might some day come in handy. Usually you could find one of the Porters or a Baldwin either being taken apart or being put back together again.
Over by the one remaining lime kiln there is a dump with the remains of an ex-Paulista 2-6-2T. There is the frame, cylinders, and wheels of anotherBaldwin very badly rusted which has no identifying marks.There is another, a bit more complete, again with no builders plate. On this one the number plate on the smokebox door is intact and shows nrº 13. One fascinating artifact is a waggon top boiler with a home-made smokebox. On the smokebox is mounted a Baldwin plate, nº 5982, which has a date 1-1882. This plate was originally on a Leopoldina meter gauge engine. There are pieces of the original rolling stock and a gasoline car in the area. lt would seem that nothing was ever thrown away.
For years the cement mill chewed up 2000 tons of limestone per day which the old engines struggled down to Perus in twelve trains of 18 rock cars with the chain connected passenger car bringing up the rear. At "Corredor", the engine either doubled the hill or one of the Alco 2-4-2Ts came down from Perús to lend a helping hand. The 12 trains kept the line busy from sunrise to sundown.
As of August 1984 nºs. 10,11,14,16,17, and 18 are stored and could run again. The cement company's Alcos nºs. 2, 3, and 5 are also stored serviceable. The oldest inhabitant second nº. 1, the only named engine - DR SYLVIO DE CAMPOS -now in its 83rd year still exists as a testament to the longevity of these little steam locomotives.
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