Background The first intention was to build a railway that would pass through El Zurdo to the port of Santa Cruz. The idea was abandoned when estimates on the amount of coal reserves were lowered. However, in 1946 estimates of 100,000,000 tons renewed interest. A new route was measured through the valleys of Río Turbio and Río Gallegos. It was only two-thirds the distance to Puerto Santa Cruz. The new route had less steep slopes and fewer snow. A report from 1949 suggested that the last design changes were made very late. in to haul
coal from Argentina's only coal mine at Rio Turbio to the port of Rio Gallegos for ongoing transportation by ship to Buenos Aires where it was used to generate electricity. Until the inauguration of a new pier in Río Gallegos in August 1952, all construction materials were unloaded and all coal was loaded from the beach. The
YPF division that exploited the extraction of carbon, named, "Combustibles Sólidos Minerales" (CSM), initially used the
Bahia Aguirre steamship and then purchased two
landing crafts from the
US Navy. Traffic gradually declined through the 1970s and 1980s. Notwithstanding, in the late 1980s a large investment was made in the development of a new coal export terminal at
Punta Loyola near the mouth of the Rio Gallegos (River Gallegos) on its southern bank, a few kilometres downstream of the township. The rail connection was not completed until 1996 when the first trains reached the port. The service was deactivated in 2009. Several proposals were put forward to develop Rio Turbio into a “steam centre” to attract tourists. These included a 2004 plan to build a new tourist railway from Río Turbio across the Chilean border to the tourist port of
Puerto Natales on the Pacific coast. Two or three of the Santa Fe locomotives were overhauled for this purpose and it was even proposed that they might resume haulage of coal trains, given their ability to consume the indigenous fuel. However, by 2022 these plans had come to nothing and there appears to be little prospect of the railway being put back into operation. == Rolling stock ==