The Devil's Nose

The rails come round the side of the valley, run out onto a ledge cut into a wall of rock, and stop. A man climbs down and throws a set of points by hand. Then the train sets off backwards, down a second ledge below the first, and stops again. Points, forward, down a third.

That is the Nariz del Diablo — the Devil's Nose — and it is how a railway gets down an almost vertical Andean rock face without a rack, a cable or a tunnel. It is a staircase, and the train walks down it.

There is no more famous piece of railway in South America, and for six years there was no train on it at all.

The most difficult railway in the world

That was the phrase in the contract. On 17 June 1897 the government of Ecuador signed an agreement to build a line from the coast at Guayaquil to Quito, 2,800 metres up in the Andes, with an American contractor named Archer Harman of Staunton, Virginia. The company was incorporated in New Jersey. Work began in 1899.

The president driving it was Eloy Alfaro, and he was doing it against near-universal opposition — conservatives and liberals alike thought the Andes could not be crossed by rail and that the money would be wasted. When Harman explained just how bad the rock at the Devil's Nose was going to be, Alfaro is supposed to have answered: "Primero tomaremos un whisky, después, venceremos al diablo." First we'll have a whisky, then we'll beat the devil.

They beat it. Locomotive No. 8, driven by Arturo Munizaga, ran into Quito on 25 June 1908, and for a moment the country stopped arguing with itself.

What it cost

In November 1900, a subcontractor called J.P. McDonald landed four thousand workers from Kingston, Jamaica. They were brought specifically for the tunnels and the bridges — the dynamite, pick and shovel work — and the Devil's Nose is their work more than anyone's.

They were employed for barely two years, until McDonald went bankrupt. In that time, by the record that survives, half of the four thousand died in workplace accidents. Some of the survivors left because of the way they had watched their countrymen die. Some went home to Jamaica. About three hundred stayed in Ecuador, and there are Ecuadorians descended from them today.

Others died too. Harman's own brother, Major John Harman, chief engineer of the line, died of disease on the works, as did his assistant George Davis. But the Jamaicans are the number that should stay with you, because it is not a rounding error in a project — it is one in two.

And then it stopped

The railway limped through the twentieth century, undercut by the Pan-American Highway and repeatedly wrecked by weather — the El Niño rains of 1997–98 did enormous damage. In 2008 President Correa declared it national cultural patrimony and poured money into restoring it as a tourist operation, and for a decade Ecuador had a genuinely lovely set of heritage trains.

Then, in 2020, every railway service in the country ceased, and the state railway company was put into liquidation by presidential decree.

It is running again — sometimes

The Devil's Nose came back in 2025, run now not by a national company but by the municipal government of Alausí, the small town at the top of the descent whose economy the railway largely is.

On 18 February 2026 a mudslide took out about five kilometres of it, displacing the formation at several points and destroying the trackbed. It reopened on Saturday 6 June 2026.

So: yes, you can ride it. It runs Thursday to Sunday, three times a day, and it takes about two hours to go down to Sibambe and back. But it has been closed more than it has been open these last six years, and the ground it is built on is not stable. Its status on a given date is worth establishing properly before a trip is built around it — and it is worth that trouble, because there is nothing else quite like it.

Alausí sits at 2,347 metres in a narrow green valley in Chimborazo province, a small Andean town of painted balconies with an enormous statue of St Peter on the hill above it. It exists in the modern world largely because of the railway, and the three years without trains hurt it badly.

The train leaves from the station at the bottom of the town — but it does not start there in any tidy sense.

Down the street

To reach the station the train runs down the middle of a public street, between the parked cars and the painted colonial fronts, with someone walking ahead of it. Locals do not look up. It is worth standing on the pavement to watch, and it sets the tone: this is a piece of infrastructure a town grew around, not a heritage attraction with a car park.

Out along the valley

From Alausí the line curves away south along the flank of the Chanchán valley, losing height gently on a shelf cut into the hillside. The country is steep, dry and pale green — cactus and agave and eucalyptus, tiny fields on impossible slopes, a scatter of houses. Below, a long way below, the Río Chanchán runs down toward the coast.

You can see where you are going almost immediately, which is part of the drama. Somewhere down there, on the valley floor, is a cluster of red-roofed buildings: Sibambe. The problem is the several hundred metres of near-vertical rock in between.

The Nose

Then the train stops on a ledge, and everything changes.

The zigzag is three legs of track cut into the face of the mountain, one below the other, connected by points at each end. The train runs forward to the end of the first leg. It halts. A crew member gets down and throws the switch by hand. The train reverses down the second leg, halts, the switch is thrown again, and it goes forward down the third.

It takes only a few minutes. There is no fuss about it, no announcement, and if you are looking the wrong way you will half miss it. What makes it extraordinary is not speed or engineering elegance but the sheer nerve of the thing: someone looked at a wall of rock, decided a railway was going down it, and cut a staircase.

There is a scheduled stop at the Nariz del Diablo viewpoint — about ten minutes — where you can get out and look back up at the ledges you have just come down.

Sibambe

The bottom of the descent. Sibambe is a station with no road to it: a platform, a handful of buildings, a museum, a café, and the confluence of two rivers in a bowl of very steep hills.

The train stops for about twenty-five minutes. There is music and dance from the surrounding indigenous communities, crafts for sale, coffee. It is a staged reception and makes no pretence otherwise — and it is also, precisely, the point of the reopening. Alausí and Sibambe lobbied for years to get the trains back because this is where the money comes from.

Then the train reverses back up the Nose and returns to Alausí. The whole thing is about two hours and roughly twelve kilometres there and back.

About the roof

Photographs of this train from before about 2010 show passengers sitting all over the carriage roofs, feet dangling, and for a long time that was the famous thing about the Devil's Nose.

It is not allowed any more, for a good reason. In 2007 two Japanese tourists riding on top were killed. Accounts of exactly how differ — a snagged cable, a lineside post, a tunnel — but the outcome does not: roof riding was prohibited, and passengers now travel inside.

If you see it offered anywhere, that offer is out of date.

Practical notes

• Sit on the left going down (the valley side) for the drop and the view of the zigzag legs below.
• It is high. Alausí is at 2,347 m, and Quito, where most people arrive, is at 2,850 m. Give yourself a day.
• Mornings are clearer. The 08:00 departure has the best chance of sun on the rock; cloud tends to build through the afternoon.
• Take cash and a jacket. It is warm in the sun and cold as soon as it goes in.

Check this before you build a trip around it. The Devil's Nose has been closed more often than open since 2020, and the ground it runs on moves.

What is running (July 2026)

The Alausí–Sibambe route reopened on Saturday 6 June 2026 after a closure of nearly four months. It is administered, operated and maintained by the municipal government of Alausí.

One caveat on the days. The Ecuadorian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport gave Thursday to Sunday when it announced the June 2026 reopening, and that is what we have used. Some Ecuadorian press has reported Wednesday to Sunday plus public holidays. Confirm when you book — and note that holiday weekends usually mean extra trains, not fewer.

What you get for the two hours

• The descent from Alausí, and the zigzag itself.
• A 10-minute stop at the Nariz del Diablo viewpoint.
• About 25 minutes at Sibambe, with music, dance and crafts from the local communities, a museum and a café.
• The climb back up the switchback to Alausí.

Fares

Set by the municipality, and different for residents and visitors. Before taxes and booking fees:

Ecuador uses the US dollar.

Why you must check

This is not ordinary caution. The recent record:

• 2020 — every railway service in Ecuador ceased, and the state railway company was put into liquidation by presidential decree.
• 2025 — the Alausí–Sibambe route was reactivated, now under municipal management.
• 18 February 2026 — an aluvión, a mudslide, destroyed about 5 kilometres of the line, displacing and wrecking the formation at several critical points. The route closed.
• 6 June 2026 — reopened, after the trackbed was rebuilt and a technical assessment found the infrastructure fit to operate.

The valley is steep, bare and unstable, and the rainy season runs roughly October to May. Landslides are a recurring feature of this railway's life, not a freak event.

Getting to Alausí

There is no train to Alausí — the national network is gone. Alausí is on the Pan-American Highway about 4 hours south of Quito and 2 hours south of Riobamba by road, and buses run frequently. Most visitors come on a day trip from Riobamba or Cuenca, or break the Quito–Cuenca journey here.

Given the 08:00 departure and the driving times, staying the night in Alausí is the sensible plan.

Operator: GAD Municipal de Alausí. Tickets at ticketexito.com (opens in a new tab). Service notices from the Ministerio de Infraestructura y Transporte at mit.gob.ec (opens in a new tab). Position as of July 2026.

Tickets are sold online through Ticket Éxito, the platform the Alausí municipality uses; you give each passenger's name, document and age, and a reservation is held for fifteen minutes while you pay. Fares are set by the municipality, with different rates for residents and visitors: $30 for a foreign adult and $15 for children, over-65s and disabled passengers, before taxes. Ecuador uses the US dollar. The fare covers the round trip, the Nariz del Diablo viewpoint and twenty-five minutes at Sibambe with the community reception.

⚠️ Confirm the train is running on your date. This line closed for nearly four months in early 2026 after a mudslide, and was out of service entirely from 2020 until 2025. Book ahead for weekends, take the 08:00 if you can — cloud builds over the valley through the day — and stay the night in Alausí, because there is no railway to it.

Alausí sits roughly halfway down Ecuador's Andean spine, on the corridor between Quito and Cuenca, so the train fits naturally into a longer journey through the highlands. The stops below are all within a few hours of it.

Alausí itself is worth more than the hour most people give it — a small town of painted wooden balconies strung along one main street, with a colossal statue of San Pedro on the hill above; climb to it for the view down the valley and along the railway. The Sunday market draws people in from the surrounding communities. The town was badly affected by a major landslide in March 2023 that destroyed part of the settlement and killed dozens; it has rebuilt, and the return of the train matters here in a way that goes well beyond tourism.

Sibambe, at the bottom of the zig-zag, is reachable only by the train: a station in a bowl of steep hills at the meeting of two rivers, with a small railway museum and community tourism run by the surrounding villages. Two hours north, Riobamba is the obvious base for the region — a handsome provincial capital of squares and churches, once the terminus of the railway from the coast, with a fine Saturday market.

The 08:00 departure and the driving distances make this a poor day trip from anywhere large. Sleep close.

Alausí

The right answer. A small selection of family-run hotels and hostales along and around the main street, plus a few restored houses with balconies over it — simple, inexpensive and a few minutes' walk from the station. Nothing here is luxurious and nothing needs to be: you want to be able to walk to an eight o'clock train.

Booking direct or on arrival is usually fine except at weekends and Ecuadorian holidays. Nights are cold at 2,347 metres — check there are enough blankets.

The haciendas

The most rewarding option in this part of the Andes, and not expensive by international standards. Several working haciendas in the countryside around Alausí and toward Riobamba take guests: eighteenth- and nineteenth-century estate houses with courtyards, open fires, horses and enormous breakfasts. Some are on the old railway. You will need a car or a transfer, and you should ask about the drive to the station for a morning train.

Riobamba

Two hours north, and the practical base if you want a wider choice, better restaurants and a city to walk round. It works for the 11:00 or 14:00 departures if you leave early; it does not really work for the 08:00.

Cuenca

Four hours south. Too far for the train on the same day, but the natural place to go afterwards — and the drive south from Alausí, through Ingapirca and over the páramo, is one of the best in Ecuador.

Guamote

Half an hour north, tiny, and with a couple of community-run guesthouses. Worth it if you are combining the train with the Thursday market, which is the real thing.

A note on altitude

Quito is at 2,850 m, Alausí at 2,347 m. If you have just flown in, give yourself a night in Quito or Riobamba before doing anything strenuous, drink more water than you want to, and go easy on the first day. The train itself asks nothing of you, but the walk up to the San Pedro statue at Alausí will tell you quickly whether you have acclimatised.