Remnants of an intercontinental railway: considered one of the most difficult engineering tasks in the world, the Guayaquil-Quito Railroad continues to inspire awe and admiration 100 years after its completion.

• Author: Holston, Mark

THE BIRTH PANGS OF THE new nation were protracted and painful. For the first seven decades of its existence as an independent republic, from 1830 to the turn of the century, Ecuador struggled to overcome obstacles to nationhood that seemed all but unsolvable at the time. The small country contains within its borders some of the most challenging terrain in all of the Americas, from snow-capped volcanoes that soar to over 20,000 feet above sea level, to craggy Andean mountain ranges and jagged river valleys in the hinterland, to an impenetrable expanse of swampy lowlands along its Pacific coast. These imposing physical features isolated Ecuador's disparate population centers and discouraged economic and political integration. Anarchy racked the land as Liberal and Conservative political factions plotted for control.

The catalyst for the revolutionary change that was needed to wrest the land from its perpetual and enervating morass came in the form of a scheme of epic proportions. The principal figures involved were a cast of larger-than-life personalities, including foreign adventurers and minded Ecuadoran general.

When Ecuadorans year to celebrate the centennial of the fabled Guayaquil-Quito Railway, their focus was on more than the triumph of an engineering marvel. Over time, the planning and construction of the railway has become deeply engrained in the national psyche as an act of political courage that truly transformed Ecuador. It produced, as Ecuadoran historian Byron Castro states, "a transcendental change in the life of the country. That's why it was termed by the Ecuadoran people la obra redentora--the redemptive work."

Beyond its monumental importance to Ecuador, the 288 mile railway represented the first actual on-the-ground project envisioned and promoted by the forerunner of today's Organization of American States.

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When the First International Conference of American States convened on October 2, 1889 in Washington, DC for a six month session, 27 delegates from thirteen nations assembled to consider ways to reduce tariffs and promote trade in the Americas. Advocating the construction of a railroad in far away Ecuador was likely the last thing on their minds. "A lot of historians dismiss this conference as a major failure because it didn't produce a customs union," comments John A. Sanbrailo of the Pan American Development Foundation, an OAS-affiliated organization. "The US wouldn't bring down its high protective tariffs, so the concept of a free market died. But what is ignored are all of the other accomplishments, which can be credited to a large degree to the efforts of the US Secretary of State at the time, James Blaine. He saw Latin American markets as being key to the development of the United States, and he believed that what would make that possible was the building of an...