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Engineering Value: The Transandine Railway and the ‘Techno-Capital’ State in Chile at the End of the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2020

Kyle E. Harvey Open the ORCID record for Kyle E. Harvey [Opens in a new window]
Kyle E. Harvey*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, History Department, Western Carolina University
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*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

By the end of the nineteenth century, railway expansion had led to the formation of a technocratic bureaucracy in Chile and other countries in Latin America. Central to this formation were the engineers who oversaw and regulated both public and private railways. Recently, historians have begun to re-examine engineers’ roles in this period. By employing methods and theoretical framings from the history of technology, this article argues that engineering was an important framework through which state–capital relations evolved, making engineers pivotal actors in the evolution of political economy at the time.

Spanish abstract

Spanish abstract

A finales del siglo XIX, la expansión ferrocarrilera llevó a la formación de una burocracia tecnócrata en Chile y en otros países en América Latina. Algo central en dicha formación fueron los ingenieros que supervisaron y regularon el sistema ferrocarrilero, tanto público como privado. Recientemente, los historiadores han comenzado a reexaminar el papel de los ingenieros en este periodo. Al emplear métodos y marcos teóricos de la historia de la tecnología, este artículo sostiene que la ingeniería fue un marco de referencia importante en el que las relaciones Estado–capital evolucionaron, convirtiendo a los ingenieros en actores centrales dentro de la economía política de ese tiempo.

Portuguese abstract

Portuguese abstract

Ao final do século dezenove, a expansão do transporte ferroviário levou à formação de uma burocracia tecnocrática no Chile e em outros países da América Latina. Os engenheiros que supervisionaram e regulamentaram ambas as ferrovias públicas e privadas foram fundamentais nesse processo. Recentemente, historiadores começaram a re-examinar a função dos engenheiros durante esse período. Através de aplicação de métodos e enquadramentos teóricos oriundos da história da tecnologia, este artigo argumenta que a engenharia foi uma importante estrutura através da qual as relações entre o Estado e o capital evoluíram, tornando os engenheiros atores centrais da economia política da época.

Keywords

Transandine railwayengineerstechnologyvaluepolitical economystate formationcapitalismFerrocarril Transandinoingenierostecnologíavaloreconomía políticaformación estatalcapitalismoFerrovia Transandinaengenheirostecnologiavaloreconomia políticaformação de Estadocapitalismo
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 711 - 733
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 For the Transandine, broadly: Lacoste, Pablo, El Ferrocarril Trasandino 1872–1984: Un siglo de ideas, política y transporte en el sur de América (Santiago: Centro de Investigaciones Diego Barros Arana, 2000)Google Scholar.

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9 Chile, Legación de, Resumen de la hacienda pública de Chile desde 1833 hasta 1914/Summary of the Finances of Chile from 1833 to 1914 (London: Spottiswoode and Co., 1914), pp. 48–9Google Scholar.

10 Mitchell, Timothy, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), pp. 42–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an alternative definition of ‘techno-politics’, see Hecht, Gabrielle, The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity After World War II (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), p. 15Google Scholar; Medina, Eden, Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), p. 244CrossRefGoogle Scholar, fn. 12.

11 For a key, albeit now controversial, work on this state logic, see Scott, James C., Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

12 Usselman, Steven W., Regulating Railroad Innovation: Business, Technology, and Politics in America, 1840–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 This is not to be confused with recent theories on ‘techno-capitalism’. See, for example, Suarez-Villa, Luis, Technocapitalism: A Critical Perspective on Technological Innovation and Corporatism (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

14 For engineers as political economic actors in a different context: Picon, Antoine, ‘The Engineer as Judge: Engineering Analysis and Political Economy in Eighteenth-Century France’, Engineering Studies, 1: 1 (2009), pp. 19–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Generally, for Latin America, historians have centred on the contingent interests of other actors in the formation of state political economy, such as lawyers, intellectuals, statesmen, as well as artisans and merchants. See Palma, Gabriel, ‘Trying to “Tax and Spend” Oneself out of the “Dutch Disease”: The Chilean Economy from the War of the Pacific to the Great Depression’, in Cárdenas, Enrique, Ocampo, José Antonio and Thorp, Rosemary (eds.), An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Latin America, vol. 1: The Export Age: The Latin American Economies in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (New York: Palgrave, 2000), pp. 217–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adelman, Jeremy, Republic of Capital: Buenos Aires and the Legal Transformation of the Atlantic World (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gootenberg, Paul, Imagining Development: Economic Ideas in Peru's ‘Fictitious Prosperity’ of Guano, 1840–1880 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Love, Joseph L. and Jacobsen, Nils (eds.), Guiding the Invisible Hand: Economic Liberalism and the State in Latin American History (New York: Praeger, 1988)Google Scholar.

15 Curry-Machado, Jonathan, ‘“Rich Flames and Hired Tears”: Sugar, Sub-imperial Agents and the Cuban Phoenix of Empire’, Journal of Global History, 4: 1 (2009), pp. 33–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Soto, Guillermo Guajardo, ‘Mecánicos, empresarios e ingenieros en los orígenes de la industria de material ferroviario de Chile, 1850–1920’, Revista de la Historia de la Economía y de la Empresa, 5 (Jan. 2011), pp. 119–47Google Scholar.

16 While the government gave the concession to Juan Clark, it is important to note that Juan and his brother Mateo Clark were partners on this project. I refer throughout the article to Juan Clark as the concessionaire for simplicity's sake. For the Clark brothers, see Vicuña, Santiago Marín, Los Hermanos Clark (Santiago: Balcells and Co., 1929)Google Scholar.

17 One productive way that I have found for working through these problems of value is in reference to the debates around subjective and objective theories of value that took place in the second half of the nineteenth century. See Marx, Karl, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1, trans. Fowkes, Ben (New York: Penguin, 1990), pp. 125–39Google Scholar; Menger, Carl, Principles of Economics: First, General Part, trans. Dingwall, James and Hoselitz, Bert F. (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1950), pp. 114–45Google Scholar; Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen von, The Positive Theory of Capital, trans. Smart, William (New York: G. E. Stechert and Co., 1923), pp. 129–37Google Scholar.

18 Cámara de Senadores, no. 250, approval of proposed law, 12 May 1887, Archivo Nacional Histórico de Chile, Santiago (hereafter ANH), Fondo Ministerio de Industria y Obras Públicas (hereafter MOBR), vol. 152, folio 1/1. The following is based on this version of the law, which the Congress approved on 12 May, the Consejo de Estado approved on 12 May and the Ministerio del Interior approved on 14 May. For these subsequent approvals, see Secretaria del Consejo de Estado, 12 May 1887, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1/5; and Ministerio del Interior, República de Chile, 14 May 1887, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1–6/6–11. Note on citations: for ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, I use two numbers for folios. The first number is for the individual document, whereas the second number is for the volume generally. An ‘r’ or ‘v’ after a number indicates recto or verso. This is not how the volume is paginated (it is not paginated), but my intention is to provide the reader with the ability to reference the documents within the volume quickly.

19 Diego Barría Traverso, ‘La autonomía estatal y clase dominante en el siglo XIX chileno: La guerra civil de 1891’, unpub. PhD diss., Universiteit Leiden, 2013, pp. 97–8; Guajardo Soto, Tecnología, estado y ferrocarriles, p. 61. For the original Argentine concession, see Argentina, República, Registro nacional de la República Argentina, tomo décimo-tercio, año 1874 (Buenos Aires: Mercurio, 1875), pp. 75–80Google Scholar.

20 By this period, the Chilean railways were mostly state-owned, but Chile was one of the first countries in the region to utilise this kind of guarantee. See Lewis, ‘The Financing of Railway Development in Latin America’, pp. 262–4.

21 Note on currency: in 1887, £1 was equal to CL$9.8. To put the concession numbers in perspective, CL$5 million was equivalent to 8.8 per cent of state expenditures in 1887, with the full annual guarantee representing up to 0.44 per cent of state expenditures that year. See Legación de Chile, Resumen de la hacienda pública de Chile desde 1833 hasta 1914, pp. 43–4.

22 Cámara de Senadores, no. 250, Article 6, Section 1, 12 May 1887, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 3r. Emphasis added.

23 Alberto Riofrío (Clark's representative) to Ministro del Interior, 28 May 1887, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1r/13r.

24 Ministerio del Interior, Decree no. 2114, 2 May 1887, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1/14. The date was likely an error. Considering that the decree refers to the 14 May law and the petition made by Riofrío on 28 May, it would seem that perhaps 29 May or 2 June was the actual date.

25 Crowther, ‘Technological Change as Political Choice’, p. 409.

26 For Budge's application to the ICE, see Institution of Civil Engineers, Form A/4381/141, proposed 6 Feb. 1879, balloted for on 1 April 1879, Archive of the Institution of Civil Engineers (AICE).

27 Crowther, ‘Technological Change as Political Choice’, p. 412.

28 Enrique Budge and Domingo Víctor Santa María (Ferrocarriles del Estado) to Ministro del Interior, 30 June 1887, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 2/16.

29 Ibid., folio 1r/15r.

30 Ibid., folios 1r–2r/15r–16r.

31 Ministerio de Industria y Obras Públicas, Decree no. 95, 26 July 1887, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1r–2v/17r–18v.

32 Ibid., Article 1, folio 1v/17v.

33 Ibid., Articles 2–4, folios 1v–2r/17v–18r.

34 Ibid., Article 5, folio 2r/18r.

35 Cámara de Senadores, no. 250, Article 1, Section 3, 12 May 1887, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1v.

36 Memorandum of Association of Clark's Transandine Railway Company Limited, Article 3, Section A, 15 Feb. 1888, The National Archives, London (hereafter TNA), Board of Trade (hereafter BT) 31/39084/25916/25133/1, Registered 3002, 20 Feb. 1888, p. 3.

37 Juan Eduardo Clark and Clark's Transandine Railway Company Limited, Memorandum of Agreement, 21 Dec. 1888, TNA, BT 31/39084/25916/9, Registered 8094, 17 March 1893, pp. 1–2.

38 For example, while Juan Clark was not an original shareholder in the company, in 1890 or 1891 the Clark brothers became shareholders in the company in a likely attempt to maintain some control over CTR's board. See Summary of Capital and Shares of Clark's Transandine Railway Company Limited, 7 Jan. 1891, TNA, BT 31/39084/25916/6, Registered 669, 8 Jan. 1891. For how the Clarks maintained control over the railway despite the need to make deals with companies and creditors that nominally diminished such control, see Kyle Edmund Harvey, ‘Prepositional Geographies: Rebellion, Railroads, and the Transandean, 1830s–1910s’, unpubl. PhD diss., Cornell University, 2019, pp. 271–92.

39 Riofrío to Ministro de Industria y Obras Públicas, 10 Nov. 1888, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1/38. However, the first submission of detailed plans to the government occurred a month later. Ferrocarril Trasandino Clark (Riofrío en representación de Juan E. Clark) to Ministro de Industria y Obras Públicas, 31 Dec. 1888, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1/39.

40 For engineer's recommendation for approving the plans: Santa María to Ministro de Industria y Obras Públicas, 8 Jan. 1888 [sic, should be 1889], ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1r/40r. For the ministry's decree on approving the plans: Ministerio de Industria y Obras Públicas, Decree no. 37, 11 Jan. 1889, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1r/42r.

41 Submission, evaluation and approval of plans for kilometres 10–13.7: Riofrío (for Juan Clark) to Ministro de Industria y Obras Públicas, 10 Sept. 1889, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1v/50v; Benjamín Vivanco (Dirección General de Obras Públicas, 1a sección) to Director de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, no. 498, 12 Sept. 1889, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1/51; J. Sotomayor (Dirección General de Obras Públicas) to Ministro de Obras Públicas, no. 1608, 13 Sept. 1889, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1r/52r; Ministerio de Industria y Obras Públicas, Decree no. 2145, 23 Sept. 1889, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1/53. Submission, evaluation and approval of plans for section from Juncal to the Argentine border: Riofrío (Ferrocarril Trasandino Clark Limitada) to Ministro de Industria y Obras Públicas, 22 Oct. 1889, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1r/54r; Vivanco (Dirección General de Obras Públicas, 1a sección) to Director General de Obras Públicas, no. 622, 15 Nov. 1889, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1r–4r/55r–58r; Sotomayor (Dirección General de Obras Públicas) to Ministro de Industria y Obras Públicas, 16 Nov. 1889, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1r/59r; Ministerio de Industria y Obras Públicas, Decree no. 2575, 16 Nov. 1889, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1/60. Submission, evaluation and approval of plans for kilometres 13.7–19: Riofrío to Ministro de Industria y Obras Públicas, 27 Feb. 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1r/63r; J. Bastide (Dirección General de Obras Públicas) to Director General de Obras Públicas, n.d. (it is probable that it was between 27 and 31 March), ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1r/64r; Sotomayor (Dirección de Obras Públicas) to Ministro de Industria y Obras Públicas, no. 53, 31 March 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1r/65r; Ministerio de Industria y Obras Públicas, Decree no. 799, 2 April 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1/66.

42 There were three reports submitted: Enrique Vergara to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 30 June 1890, copy, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1r–18r/74r–92r; Augusto Knudsen to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 2 July 1890, copy, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1r–26r/93r–118r; Louis Cousin (Dirección General de Obras Públicas, 2a sección) to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 16 July 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1r–7r/119r–125r.

43 Knudsen to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 2 July 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 11r–12r/103r–104r; Vergara to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 30 June 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 5r–6r/78r–79r; Cousin to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 16 July 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1r–2r/119r–120r. There is also a description of the rack system in the study presented by the company. See Ferrocarril Trasandino Clark, ‘Informes del Ingeniero A. Schatzmann sobre los estudios hechos para el paso de la Cordillera de Los Andes por la provincial de Aconcagua i [sic] sobre la aplicación de la tracción mixta Sistema Abt’, 1889, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1r–20r/143r–163r.

44 Vergara to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 30 June 1890, copy, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 4r–8r/77r–81r.

45 Ibid., folios 6r–8r/79r–81r.

46 Knudsen to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 2 July 1890, copy, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152 folios 19r–26r/111r–118r.

47 Vergara to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 30 June 1890, copy, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 14r/88r.

48 Ibid., folio 15r/89r.

49 Ibid., folios 15r–16r/89r–90r.

50 Knudsen to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 2 July 1890, copy, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 19r–20r/111r–112r.

51 For a biography of Louis (or Luis) Cousin, see Instituto de Ingenieros de Chile, ‘Necrolojía Don Luis Cousin’, Anales del Instituto de Ingenieros de Chile, 13: 10 (1913), pp. 463–4Google Scholar.

52 Cousin (Dirección de Obras Públicas) to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 16 July 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1r/119r.

53 For the most part, Vergara's and Knudsen's reports received more attention from ministers, directors, engineers and company representatives than Cousin's report. For example, the director of public works based his ultimate recommendation on Vergara's report. Clark's representative, Riofrío, later commented in a letter on the studies that Cousin's report was general and not really based on the local particularities, and therefore was less important to consider than Vergara's and Knudsen's reports. In the final report, Budge mentioned having read Cousin's report, but spent most of his energies on critiquing Vergara's and Knudsen's reports. See Sotomayor (Dirección de Obras Públicas) to Ministro de Industria y Obras Públicas, no. 720, 21 June 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 2/132; Riofrío to Ministro de Industria y Obras Públicas, received 18 Aug. 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1r/143r/1r; Enrique Budge to Ministro de Obras Públicas, ‘Informe del ingeniero don Enrique Budge relativo al trazado del ferrocarril trasandino, vía Uspallata, en la sección de Río Blanco a Juncal’, 7 Oct. 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1r–11r/198r–208r/217r–227r. In sources with three foilio numbers, the last one indicates the pagination written on the source.

54 Vergara to Director General de la Oficina de Obras Públicas, 30 June 1890, copy, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 2r–3r/75r–76r.

55 Clark and Co. to Exmo. Sr. D. Aníbal Pinto, Presidente de la República, Valparaíso, 23 April 1877, in Cía., Clark y, El Ferro-carril trasandino interoceánico entre Buenos Aires y Valparaíso: Algunos datos sobre el estado actual de la empresa (Buenos Aires: Imprenta de La Nación, 1877), pp. 20–4Google Scholar.

56 Ibid., p. 25.

57 República de Chile, Ministerio del Interior, Memoria del Ministerio del Interior presentada al Congreso Nacional en 1887 (Santiago: Imprenta Nacional, 1887), p. xliv.

58 Salazar, Gabriel and Pinto, Julio, Historia contemporánea de Chile, vol. 3: La economía: Mercado, empresarios y trabajadores (Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2002), p. 33Google Scholar; Bauer, Arnold, Chilean Rural Society from the Spanish Conquest to 1930 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 70–2Google Scholar.

59 María, Domingo Víctor Santa, ‘Comparación de varios trazados de un ferrocarril entre dos puntos dados’, Anales del Instituto de Ingenieros, 3: 14 and 15 (1892), pp. 595–648Google Scholar and pp. 665–729 respectively.

60 Ibid., pp. 596–609.

61 Ibid., p. 667.

62 Ibid., pp. 604–8.

63 Señor Don M. Nireustein to Señor Pro-Secretario General de la Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Sept. 1908, Archivo Histórico de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, R-122/G11-01-10; Schneidewind, Alberto, ‘Teoría del trazado de ferrocarriles’, Anales de la Sociedad Científica Argentina, 39: 1 (1895), pp. 5–6Google Scholar; Backhaus, Ursula, ‘An Engineer's View of Economics: Wilhelm Launhardt's Contributions’, Journal of Economic Studies, 27: 4/5 (2000), pp. 424–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 López, Manuel Fernández, ‘Ugo Broggi: A Precursor in Mathematical Economics’, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 10: 2 (2003), p. 313Google Scholar; Schneidewind, Alberto, Teoría de las tarifas: Extracto de las conferencias dadas en la Facultad de Ingeniería por el Catedrático de la asignatura Ingeniero Alberto Schneidewind (Buenos Aires: M. Biedma e Hijo, 1906)Google Scholar.

65 Sotomayor (Dirección de Obras Públicas) to Ministro de Obras Públicas, no. 720, 21 July 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1v–2v/131v–132v.

66 Sotomayor (Dirección General de Obras Públicas) to Ministro de Obras Públicas, no. 917, 20 Aug. 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1/147.

67 Budge to Ministro de Obras Públicas, ‘Informe del ingeniero don Enrique Budge relativo al trazado del ferrocarril trasandino, vía Uspallata, en la sección de Río Blanco a Juncal’, 7 Oct. 1890, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 2v–9v/200v–207v/218v–225v.

68 Ibid., folio 11r/209r/227r.

69 On how ‘technology’ embodied and obscured important changes in the nineteenth century, see Marx, Leo, ‘Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept’, Technology and Culture, 51: 3 (2010), pp. 561–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 Anglo-American Construction Company, ‘Memorandum read at the Board Meeting of the Anglo-American Construction Company, signed Mateo Clark, read by J. M. Macalaster’, 3 Nov. 1891, Norfolk Record Office (hereafter NRO), MC 84/375, 532x2, folio 1r.

71 Ibid., folios 2r–3r.

72 Summary of Capital and Shares of Clark's Transandine Railway Company Limited, 13 Jan. 1892, TNA, BT 31/39084/25916/7, Registered 2467, 28 Jan. 1892. The one added member by 1892 was Henry Baggallay, engineer. The member who left was Charles Augustin Prevost.

73 Clark, y Cía, ., Su concurso: Informes del síndico provisorio y del contador (Buenos Aires: Jacobo Peuser, 1893)Google Scholar, NRO, MC 84/377, 532x2.

74 ‘Reclamos de obreros’, Los Andes, 25 Feb. 1891, p. 1; ‘Informalidad de una empresa’, Los Andes, 1 Oct. 1891, p. 2; ‘Campo Neutral’, Los Andes, 19 Feb. 1892, p. 2; ‘Pobres jentes!’ (sic), Los Andes, 2 April 1892.

75 ‘El asunto del Trasandino’, Los Andes, 7 Oct. 1892, p. 1; ‘El señor Juan E. Clark’, Los Andes, 8 Oct. 1892, p. 1.

76 Banco Comercial de Chile, Banco de Valparaíso and others to Juan Clark, Prórroga (Extension), no. 20, 3 July 1891, Archivo Nacional de la Administración Chile (hereafter ARNAD), Notarios de Valparaíso, vol. 313, folios 30v–37v.

77 Cámara de Senadores, no. 250, Article 1, Section 3, 12 May 1887, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1v. There were no explicit mentions of when construction began, but the best indications are sometime in early 1888. For example, see ‘Ferrocarril trasandino’, El Mercurio, 19 March 1888, p. 2.

78 Baggallay, ‘Clark's Transandine Railway Company’, May 1893, NRO, MC 84/377, 532x2, folio 1.

79 Santa María (Dirección General de Obras Públicas) to Ministro de Obras Públicas, no. 3455, 24 May 1892, AHN, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1–2/236–7; Santa María (Dirección General de Obras Públicas) to Ministro de Obras Públicas, no. 3669, 20 June 1892, AHN, MOBR, vol. 152, folio 1/239; Santa María (Dirección General de Obras Públicas) to Ministro de Obras Públicas, no. 3875, 25 July 1892, AHN, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1–2/241–2; Santa María (Dirección General de Obras Públicas) to Ministro de Obras Públicas, no. 4100, 23 Aug. 1892, AHN, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1–2/221–2. I estimate eight and a half years by taking the construction totals for April through to July, CL$7,539.64, and multiplying it out by three to get a figure that represents annual construction progress (CL$22,618.92). I use contemporaneous estimates from one of the company engineers, J. Travenetti, to compare how much money the company estimated it would need to complete the section to the actual progress made on the railway. Travenetti estimated that completing that section would cost CL$197,340. Thus, at the rate the company was building (CL$22,618.92/year) it would have taken approximately eight years and eight months to finish the section. See J. Travenetti, ‘Presupuesto para terminar la línea hasta km. 30’, 7 Sept. 1892, NRO, MC 84/377, 532x2, folios 1–3.

80 de Chile, República, de Senadores, Cámara, Boletín de las Sesiones Ordinarias en 1892 (Santiago: Imprenta Nacional, 1892), p. 337Google Scholar.

81 Ibid., p. 338.

82 Government commission's report: República de Chile, Cámara de Senadores, Boletín de las Sesiones Extraordinarias en 1893 (Santiago: Imprenta Nacional, 1893), pp. 965–6.

83 Ibid., p. 966.

84 República de Chile, Law no. 28, ‘Ferrocarril trasandino por Aconcagua – modificaciones de la ley del 14 de Mayo de 1887’, 4 Feb. 1893, Boletín de las leyes y decretos del gobierno, libro LXII, núm. 2, año 1893 – tomo I, primer cuatrimestre (Santiago: Imprenta Nacional, 1893), pp. 97–9.

85 That the guarantee's nominality was directly related to the railway's productive capacity is not merely my post facto interpretation. Aside from the debates on the Transandine, the debate on the guarantee system in general also revolved around this point. The interior minister, Pedro Montt, argued against establishing a standardised system for evaluating guarantees based on the fact that the law would have diminished the government's ability to evaluate the ‘utility’ of the railway to the country. According to Montt, it was that criterion, the railway's productive capacity, that was ‘[t]he fundamental point that should determine the concession of the guarantee’. See de Diputados, Cámara, Boletín de Sesiones Ordinarias en 1893 (Santiago: Imprenta Nacional, 1893), p. 54Google Scholar.

86 For the petition for the modified construction plans, see Riofrío to Ministro de Industria y Obras Públicas, received 10 May 1893, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1–2/243–4; for the government's response, see Dirección General de Obras Públicas to Ministro de Obras Públicas, no. 1254, 4 July 1893, ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1–2/255–6.

87 For the position of managing directors, see Messrs M. E. Clark and M. Clark to the Anglo-American Construction Company Limited, Agreement for Transfer of Business, 12 Sept. 1891, TNA, BT 31/5151/34791/5, Registered 29112, 11 Nov. 1891, p. 3. For the assets, see Anglo-American Construction Company, ‘Memorandum read at the Board Meeting of the Anglo-American Construction Company, signed Mateo Clark, read by J. M. Macalaster’, 3 Nov. 1891, NRO, MC 84/375, 532x2. While its memorandum of association did not explicitly state it, the Anglo-American Construction Company was formed to take over the Clark brothers’ assets, indicated by the company's formation date and the common shareholders it had with the railway company, namely John Muir Macalaster, Kenneth Edward Mackenzie and Ernest Charles Cartner Smith. See Memorandum of Association of the Anglo-American Construction Company Limited, 11 Sept. 1891, TNA, BT 31/5151/34791/33860/2, Registered 25032, 11 Sept. 1891; Summary of Capital and Shares of the Anglo-American Construction Company Limited, 25 Jan. 1892, TNA, BT 31/5151/34791/6, Registered 2471, 28 Jan. 1892; Summary of Capital and Shares of Clark's Transandine Railway Company Limited, 13 Jan. 1892, TNA, BT 31/39084/25916/7, Registered 2467, 28 Jan. 1892.

88 Messrs M. E. Clark and M. Clark to the Anglo-American Construction Company Limited, Agreement for Transfer of Business, 12 Sept. 1891.

89 Baggallay, ‘Clark's Transandine Railway’, May 1893, NRO, MC 84/377, folio 2r.

90 Ibid., folio 1r.

91 In particular, see Ibid., folios 4r–5r.

92 Mateo Clark to Baggallay, 19 June 1893, NRO, MC 84/379, 532x2.

93 Petition by Mateo Clark, n.d., ANH, MOBR, vol. 152, folios 1–2/269–70. He likely sent the petition to the government, not the Congress, in Aug. or Sept. of 1893. See Mateo Clark to Baggallay, 25 Aug. 1893; Mateo Clark to Baggallay, 22 Sept. 1893; and Mateo Clark to Baggallay, 9 Oct. 1893, NRO, MC 84/379.

94 Marín Vicuña, Los Hermanos Clark, p. 230.

95 Brodie Haldane Henderson, Paper no. 4068, ‘The Transandine Railway’, in J. H. T. Tudsbery (ed.), Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers; With Other Selected and Abstracted Papers, vol. 195 (London: ICE, 1914), p. 173.