“The longest tunnel in Latin America was in Chile” -

At the beginning of the 20th century, a project began that sought to build a railway line for a bioceanic train that would connect the Pacific with the Atlantic and would pass through the Andean Araucanía, it would be an alternative for the crossing through Magallanes.

To achieve this they had to make a tunnel that crossed the Cordillera de las Raíces, its construction began in 1929 and it took 10 years to build, with a camp on one side in Sierra Nevada and the other in Boca Norte, where they had a square, theater, bars and many stories.

Imagine how difficult it was, with a camp at each end digging to meet one day, with temperatures below 0º and with landslides that caused the first tragedies of Chilean workers trapped underground.

Another of the main reasons for the construction of this railway was the lumber industry of that time, in which the native forest, the Araucarias of the mountain range, was razed.

The initial project was never finished, the train reached Lonquimay and operated until the 1990s, transporting passengers and merchandise, after which the train was withdrawn from the area and a few years later the tunnel was remodeled and transformed for vehicles.

Currently, the Las Raíces Tunnel is part of International Route 181 that connects Malalcahuello and Lonquimay, it is paved, it has lights inside and with entrance traffic lights since it is a single track and there are turns in the direction of traffic. It is the third longest vehicular tunnel in Latin America and for all its history and the place where it is located, it is a tourist attraction in the Andean Araucanía.