This is the story of railway construction in the most challenging context. In the Andes are the highest railway summits, the stiffest adhesion grades, the most tortuous curves and the hardest operating conditions to be found anywhere. The author is a locomotive man who before becoming a writer spent nearly 25 years as an operating officer on the highest & hardest of all the Andean railways. This highly readable account combines much factual information along with many of his own personal anecdotes drawn from experience.