Narratives and Discourses of Railway Landscapes

Infrastructural Heritage of the Ferrocarril del Sur in the region of Maule and the province of Chimbarongo

Abstract

This article examines a portion of the railway heritage associated with the main network of the Southern Railway, built since the second half of the 19th century in Chile. Understanding railway heritage as a fundamental part of national history and local memory, the station facilities of Chimbarongo, Teno, San Rafael, Villa Alegre, and Perquilauquén in the O’Higgins and Maule regions are taken as case studies. These stations are currently unused and in varying states of preservation, despite having been simultaneously declared National Historic Monuments in 2017. Considering these stations as a typological ensemble and individually, they are analyzed as a complex phenomenon using an interdisciplinary methodology composed of morphological-formal, historical-discursive, and narrative examinations. The argument is made in favor of interdisciplinary analysis to highlight the value of this heritage for the geopolitical and identity development of the territory, demonstrating a correspondence between its material and cultural history. A period of boom and consolidation is observed, followed by a decline and abandonment, both materiality of the station and the social connections anchored to it. This underscores the importance of this railway architecture as a heritage value at the state and communal levels, which calls for preservation.