Nitrate Railway Line

During the nitrate boom, there were over two hundred saltpetre works in northern Chile. All of them were interconnected by a specially-built modern railway system, whose construction began in the second half of the 19th century and was financed by private British companies. The remains of the line that linked Humberstone and Santa Laura reveal the great infrastructure that made the transportation of nitrate over 45 kilometres possible, from the saltpetre offices to the port of Iquique. Once in Iquique, nitrate was shipped and exported to North America and Europe.