Estrada de Ferro Caminho das Águas

This heritage railway is a joint project of José Mauro Cardoso de Oliveira and the Municipal Prefecture of Ipatinga, a city in the Minas Gerais state, located at the so known Vale do Aço ("Steel Valley"). José Mauro's grandfather was locomotive engineer of the E.F. Leopoldina. He became a great railfan as he spent his boyhood near the railroad line and riding locomotives. Many years ago, already a man, he decided to re-create the railways he saw as a boy. So he bought an old steam locomotive from the Pureza Sugar Mill, near Campos dos Goytacazes (RJ): a Germany-built 1937 Arn Jung, with 80 cm gauge. He brought the machine to his farm, in Porto Novo do Cunha (MG), built about 200 meters of 80 cm gauge line, a shed and presto!: a railroad was born. However, after some years, it became somewhat boring to operate such a short railroad with few passengers. So he proposed the Ipatinga city government an idea: to create a small railway in the Ipanema Park, a pleasant place in the city near a river. Fortunately his suggestion was accept and his dream came through with the birth of the E.F. Caminho das Águas, which has about 2.5 km of length, two turntables, two wooden passenger cars, a shed - and, naturally, the old Arn Jung steam locomotive. However, in October 2002 the operations in this railway were temporarily halted, waiting for some maintenance works in the steam locomotive.