Passos was son of Antônio Pereira Passos, Barão de Mangaratiba, and Clara Oliveira. Until the age of fourteen he was raised at the Bálsamo Farm, in
São João Marcos, currently
Rio Claro district, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. In March 1852 he joined the then Military School, now the Polytechnic School of the
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro — former University of Brazil where he graduated in 1856 as a Bachelor in Physical and Mathematical Sciences, which gave him the Diploma of civil engineer. He was a classmate of
Benjamin Constant. He studied in France from 1857 to the end of 1860, where he attended the urban reform of Paris promoted by Georges-Eugène Haussmann. His stay in Paris had a profound influence on Passos, who was to devote himself to railway engineering and urban planning. On his return to Brazil in 1860, Pereira Passos dedicates himself to the construction and expansion of the Brazilian railway network, under the demand of the coffee economy. He participated in the construction of the
Santos–Jundiaí Railroad (1867), the extension of the
D. Pedro II Railroad to the
São Francisco River (1868), and technical consultant to the Ministry of Agriculture and Public Works (1870). He returned to Europe in 1871, in the company of the
Baron of Mauá, as inspector of the Imperial Government. In Europe, he studied European rail systems and was inspired by the Swiss railroad which climbed
Mount Righi with slopes of up to 20%, to run the railway extension to Petrópolis. System that would still be used later in the first tourist railrway of Brazil,
Corcovado Railway. He directed at the same time the Arsenal of Ponta da Areia, at the invitation of the Baron of Mauá, producing rails and wagons. He was appointed engineer of the Ministry of the Empire in 1874, and it is up to Pereira Passos to accompany all the works of the imperial government. He was part of the commission that was to present the city's overall urban reform plan, including widening streets, building major avenues, channeling rivers among other urban and sanitary measures. The survey carried out from 1875 to 1876 would be the basis of the future master plan of the city, put into practice in the administration of Passos as mayor. He returned to Europe in 1880 and remained in Paris until 1881. In the meantime he attended courses at the
Sorbonne and the
Collège de France, visiting factories, steel mills, transport companies and public works in Europe. Still in 1881 he became a consultant for
Compagnie Générale de Chemins de Fer Brésiliens, to accompany the construction of a railway line in Paraná, linking the
Port of Paranaguá to
Curitiba. On his return to Brazil, he moved to Paraná and only after the railroad was inaugurated in 1882, he returned to the capital. On his return, he assumed the chairmanship of
Companhia Ferro-Carril de São Cristóvão, replacing the
Viscount of Taunay. After restructuring the company, in 1884, Pereira Passos proposes to the shareholders the acquisition of the Italian project Giuseppe Fogliani, for the construction of a great avenue. Despite the shareholders' approval and the construction license obtained, the project did not go out of print. However, this would be more an anticipation of what would come to occur in his management as mayor 20 years later: the opening of
Avenida Central. == Mayor ==