Tren Patagónico

This railway was built to sell land. When Ezequiel Ramos Mexía, the minister behind Argentina's 1908 plan for Patagonia, sent railways into the south, the line from the Atlantic at San Antonio Oeste to Lake Nahuel Huapi was meant to be a state railway that colonised as it went: the track would raise the value of the empty steppe on either side, and the sale of that land would pay for the track. It took twenty-six years, a world war and two long stoppages before the first train reached Bariloche in May 1934.

The land never filled up, and that is what you cross today. Once a week the Tren Patagónico leaves Viedma, the capital of Río Negro, on a Friday at 17:00 and runs 827 kilometres west to San Carlos de Bariloche, arriving at 12:10 on Saturday. It comes back on Sunday. Between the sea and the Andes lie the dry plateau the people of the province call the Línea Sur, a string of small towns that grew up around the stations, and a long night in a sleeper or a Pullman seat.

It is run by Tren Patagónico S.A., a company owned entirely by the Province of Río Negro, which took the line on in 1993 when the national railways were being wound up. It carries cars as well as people, and its dining car serves Patagonian lamb.

The westbound train leaves Viedma at 17:00 on Friday from a station three kilometres south of the town centre, on the right bank of the río Negro. For the first four hours it runs west across the low country inland from the San Matías gulf to San Antonio Oeste, where it arrives at 21:20 and stands for an hour. This is where the railway began: Guido Jacobacci, the Italian engineer put in charge of the Patagonian state railways, arrived with his family in November 1908 and started laying track west from the village, living in houses of timber and corrugated iron shipped from England.

The Línea Sur, by night

After San Antonio Oeste the train climbs onto the plateau, and most of the next eight hours pass in the dark. Valcheta, at 00:30, is an oasis on its stream; the first 112 km of line, opened on 19 March 1910, ended here, and water from the Valcheta went back down the track in tank wagons to supply the coast. Then come Ramos Mexía at 02:40, Sierra Colorada under its red hill at 03:40, and Los Menucos at 04:33. By Maquinchao, at 05:56, the train has passed kilometre 392, where the money ran out in 1914, four kilometres beyond an English-owned estancia.

Morning: Jacobacci to the mountains

Ingeniero Jacobacci is the longest stop of the morning, 07:14 to 07:29. The town was named in 1925 after the line's builder, and it is the northern end of La Trochita, the 750 mm railway to Esquel, whose narrow track runs out of the same station. From here the line crosses the last of the steppe through Clemente Onelli, Comallo and Pilcaniyeu, which the rails had reached by 1925, and the mountains rise ahead. Fifteen kilometres from the end it crosses the gorge of the Ñirihuau on a steel truss, and at 12:10 it pulls into San Carlos de Bariloche, 19 hours and 10 minutes after leaving the sea.

Going east, the train leaves Bariloche at 17:00 on Sunday, so in summer the mountains and the western steppe pass in daylight, and the plateau again at night. It reaches San Antonio Oeste at 06:58 and Viedma at 12:20 on Monday.

The train

The long-distance train is hauled by diesel locomotives; GM GT22CW numbers 9070 and 9073 are two of the most powerful, and they run more than 90,000 km a year. Behind them come Pullman coaches with reclining seats, sleeping cars with two-berth cabins, a dining car serving set menus of regional cooking, and wagons that carry passengers' cars. On long weekends there is also a cinema car, showing Argentine and Patagonian films. In October the operator also sells a Primera Sorefame class: compartments for six with padded seats and central heating.

The same company runs a second, smaller train on the western half of the line: the Tren Expreso Rionegrino, a diesel railcar set between Ingeniero Jacobacci and Bariloche on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The photograph at the top of this page shows one of the company's diesel railcars, not the overnight train, crossing the Ñirihuau in November 2023.

One train a week in each direction, all year: west from Viedma on Friday at 17:00, back from Bariloche on Sunday at 17:00. The times below are the operator's own, from Tren Patagónico's published timetable, read in October 2026. Arrival is the first time, departure the second.

Before you plan around it

The service is sometimes suspended at short notice. In 2026 it stopped for about two weeks in July after a partial derailment, when the train struck cattle on the line, and the operator cancelled the departures of 23 and 25 October for track repairs after storm damage. Check the operator's home page in the week you travel, where suspensions are announced.

The Tren Expreso Rionegrino, the operator's railcar between Ingeniero Jacobacci and Bariloche, runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays in each direction; the operator's 2026 page gives the days and fares but not the times.

Departures are published by the operator: Tren Patagónico · trenpatagonicosa.com.ar (opens in a new tab).

Pullman seats are sold online through the operator's booking site. Sleeper berths and car places are sold only at the stations' ticket offices, in person or by phone, and through the operator's approved agencies. Fares are in Argentine pesos and are set in two bands: one for residents of Argentina and a higher one for everyone else. For October to December 2026 a Pullman seat is $126,200 for a visitor and a sleeper bed $176,300.

Retired people pay 20% less and children aged 4 to 12 pay 30% less; under-fours travel free but without a seat of their own. Each ticket includes 10 kg of luggage. Refunds lose 10% more than four days out, rising to 40% on the day, and nothing comes back once the train has left.

No rail pass covers the Tren Patagónico. Interrail and Eurail are European schemes, and Argentina is not among the countries in Interrail's list of covered railway companies. Every seat and berth is bought from the operator, train by train.

Checked October 2026 against Interrail's list of railway companies (opens in a new tab).

The train stops ten times between Viedma and Bariloche, and half of those stops come in the middle of the night. These four are worth getting off for, or staying longer at: the two towns at the start, the coast beside San Antonio Oeste, an oasis on the plateau, and the lakes at the end.

The train is the bed for one night. What is needed is somewhere in Viedma before the Friday-evening departure, and somewhere in Bariloche after the midday Saturday arrival: one hotel on the river at the start, and one on the lakes at the end.

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