science
Latin America's first solar train carried 90,000 riders
The valley had the sun all along. Now it runs a train.
More than 90,000 people have ridden Latin America's first solar-powered railway since it launched in June 2024, according to the Jujuy government. The Tren Solar de la Quebrada runs 42 kilometers through the Andes in Argentina's far northwest, linking six towns along the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a UNESCO World Heritage valley that people have crossed for thousands of years. Pre-Inca peoples used it as a trading route, and Spanish colonial roads later followed the same path. Passenger rail vanished from the valley around 30 years ago. The two-car train runs on six lithium batteries charged with solar power, giving it a range of 100 to 120 kilometers, more than twice the route it actually travels. There are no overhead lines and no diesel, on a corridor where neither existed anyway. The valley gets some of the best solar conditions on Earth. For most of its history, that energy was just weather.
