Tren Solar de la Quebrada

For thirty years no passenger train ran through the Quebrada de Humahuaca. The metre-gauge line up the valley from Jujuy towards Bolivia lost its long-distance trains in 1993, the province that took it on two years later let it go, and time and the weather destroyed much of the track. In June 2024 a train came back to 42 kilometres of it, between Volcán and Tilcara, and this one runs on sunlight: two articulated railcars built in China, with lithium batteries charged by solar power and nothing coming out of an exhaust.

The Tren Solar de la Quebrada climbs the valley of the Río Grande through a landscape UNESCO inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2003, a corridor people have travelled for ten thousand years. It calls at six stations: Volcán, Tumbaya, the colonial village of Purmamarca under its striped hill, the staging post of Hornillos, Maimará below the Paleta del Pintor and Tilcara, at 2,465 metres. The operator calls it the first solar train in Latin America.

It is run as a day out rather than a commuter line. The main ticket buys the whole valley in one day, with a guide on board and an hour or more at every stop to walk round; a shorter one is a return of an hour and a half to two hours from Purmamarca. It is run by a public body of the Province of Jujuy, and it carried 49,357 passengers in 2025.

The day begins at Volcán, at 2,084 metres, where the trains are kept and charged. Two groups leave each morning, Group A at 09:00 and Group B at 10:00, and both cover the same six stations in a different order. Each stop is long enough to leave the train: an hour at most stations, two hours and twenty-five minutes at Purmamarca, an hour and forty minutes at Tilcara. Guides travel on the train and meet it at each station.

Up the valley

From Volcán the line follows the Río Grande north between bare, folded mountains. Tumbaya, at 2,099 metres, has a church of 1796. Purmamarca is the longest stop, time enough to reach the village, three kilometres up a side valley under the Cerro de los Siete Colores, the hill of seven colours. North of it, the train calls at the Posta de Hornillos, an eighteenth-century staging post on the old road from Potosí to Buenos Aires, and at Maimará, where the mountainside behind the village is striped like a painter's palette. The line ends at Tilcara, 42 kilometres from Volcán, below the stone walls of its Pucará.

Group A goes up in the morning with a long stop at Purmamarca and comes back in the afternoon through Hornillos and Tumbaya, reaching Volcán at 19:40. Group B stops on the way up at every station and comes back in the evening without stopping for long, reaching Volcán at 20:40.

The train

The Tren Solar runs with two articulated battery railcars built by CRRC Tangshan in China, which reached Volcán in November 2023. Each seats 72, has a top speed of 60 km/h and carries six lithium batteries with a reserve, good for 100 to 120 kilometres on a charge; the operator lists fast-charging points at Volcán and Purmamarca, with Tilcara to follow. Inside are panoramic windows, seats that turn, screens and wireless chargers. There is no food or drink on board, apart from a small bottle of water.

The railway itself is much older. The line through the Quebrada was built in the early twentieth century as part of the state railway to La Quiaca on the Bolivian border, and Volcán grew up around its station in 1905. Work to bring it back began in 2017, and the 42 kilometres to Tilcara were rebuilt from 2022, paid for out of the dividends of the province's Cauchari solar park.

Trains run on most days of the week, all year. In the weeks we checked, from late October to late November 2026, the operator's booking site sold no trains on Wednesdays and none on most Mondays. The times below are the operator's own, from Tren Solar de la Quebrada's published timetables, read in October 2026. Where a station shows two times, the train arrives at the first and leaves at the second; a dash means the train does not stop.

Experiencia 360°: the full day from Volcán

Two groups a day, each with its own timetable. A ticket is for one group, and you keep to its train.

Experiencia 180°: a short return from Purmamarca

The station ticket offices open Thursday to Tuesday, 09:00 to 17:00. Seats are allocated, not chosen, and the operator warns that on a full train some passengers may have no seat assigned.

Departures are published by the operator: Tren Solar de la Quebrada · trensolar.com.ar (opens in a new tab).

Tickets are sold on the operator's booking site, by WhatsApp and email, and at the ticket office in San Salvador de Jujuy's Cabildo. Fares are in Argentine pesos and come in two bands: one for holders of an Argentine identity card, a higher one for everyone else. From 15 September 2026 the full day costs a visitor from abroad $113,000, and the short return $60,000.

Children from 2 to 11 pay less, and under-twos travel free on an adult's lap. Bring a small bag of no more than 3 kg. Cancelling costs 10% of the fare 60 days out, rising to 90% in the last week, and nothing can be changed the day before.

No rail pass covers the Tren Solar de la Quebrada. Interrail and Eurail are European schemes, and Argentina is not among the countries in Interrail's list of covered railway companies. Every ticket is bought from the operator, day by day.

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

Every station gets at least an hour on the full-day ticket, so the villages are part of the trip, not a view from the window. Volcán, Tumbaya and Hornillos are described along the route above; these are the three places worth the longest look, and the ruined town above the last of them.

The trains start and finish at Volcán, 42 km by road from San Salvador de Jujuy, and the operator sells a transfer from Jujuy or Salta with the ticket. Staying in the Quebrada itself makes for an easier morning and a quieter night: one hotel under the coloured hill at Purmamarca, and one in Tilcara at the end of the line.

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