Where the data comes from
Every figure on this site has a source and a date. Here they are, with the correction log.
What comes from where
| Data | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Which stretches run today | Bulletins from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport | 27 August 2026 |
| Devil's Nose: days and departures | Ministry bulletin of 6 June 2026 (reopening after the landslide) | 27 August 2026 |
| Devil's Nose: fares | Dated Ecuadorian press; the operator does not publish them online | 27 August 2026 |
| Tren Tayta Imbabura (Ibarra–Andrade Marín) | Ministry: 13 km, run by INNOVA EP, in service since April 2025 | 27 August 2026 |
| Tren Tayta Imbabura: days, times and fares | Official website trendeltaytaimbabura.gob.ec | 10 October 2026 |
| Ibarra–Salinas | Ministry: 30.1 km surveyed in January 2026 | 27 August 2026 |
| Routes, stations and Tren Crucero classes | The railway's historical record — not operational information | 27 August 2026 |
| Station coordinates | Approximate locations taken from OpenStreetMap | 10 October 2026 |
Why there is no "real time" here
Because there is none. Ferrocarriles del Ecuador has been in liquidation since 2020: no API, no GTFS, no operator board to query. What does exist is what each administration publishes when it reopens or suspends a stretch, and that is what we carry. Our status panel describes the state of each route, not the incidents of the day, and says so in its own heading.
We tried the other end too: the ticket portal (Ticket Éxito) blocks automated access, so we cannot read prices or availability from it. Wherever a price appears, the date we checked it appears beside it.
Correction log
10 October 2026 — the Tren Tayta Imbabura, Baltazar Ushca and other facts
Added the official days, times and fares of the Tren Tayta Imbabura (Wednesday to Sunday, 08:00, 11:00 and 14:00; $11.50 adults), which were missing from the schedule, fares and station pages, where the Devil's Nose was called the only stretch running. Corrected that Baltazar Ushca, the last ice merchant of Chimborazo, died on 11 October 2024; the Urbina page described him as alive. Also: the Devil's Nose is about 12.5 km each way (we said 12 km round trip); the Freedom Train covers about 30 km between Ibarra and Salinas, not from Otavalo; the Andrade Marín coordinates (text and map on its page) were about 8 km too far east, in Ibarra; Devil's Nose tickets are sold through Ticket Éxito, not at the station; and we removed the facilities list that was repeated word for word on every station, including those with no train.
27 August 2026 — February's landslide and June's reopening
The site was built on 4 June 2026 and did not record that a landslide on 18 February 2026 damaged some 5 km of track at Alausí and left the Devil's Nose suspended from 19 February, nor that the ministry rebuilt the trackbed and trains ran again from 6 June 2026. Added to the route page, the standing notice and the front page, in both languages.
27 August 2026 — the Imbabura stretch has a name and an operator
We called it "a municipal Ibarra–Andrade Marín stretch". It is the Tren Tayta Imbabura, 13 km, run by the public company INNOVA EP since April 2025. We also added that Ibarra–Salinas (30.1 km) was surveyed in January 2026 with a view to future reactivation.
10 October 2026 — the status panel spoke as if it were live
It used "Normal service", "Partial delays" and "Service suspended" — the vocabulary of an incident board. And it showed "partial delays" for the Freedom Train, a route that does not run. Rewritten as route status: running, only one stretch, suspended since 2020. We logged it here on 27 August, but the change did not reach the panel itself until 10 October.
27 August 2026 — the old ticketing domain is gone from the site
The fares page named the portal Tren Ecuador used to sell tickets. That domain no longer belongs to the operator and now hosts something else, so the mention was removed in both languages.
Report an error
Write to [email protected] with the page address and what does not match. Corrections go in above, with a date. More about how we work on the About page.
Sources
- Ecuador's Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport — official bulletins on the reopened stretches: Ibarra–Antonio Ante (April 2025), the Ibarra–Salinas survey (January 2026) and the Devil's Nose returning to service (6 June 2026).
- The Alausí municipal government, which administers, runs and maintains the Alausí–Sibambe stretch.
- Ticket Éxito, the Devil's Nose ticket channel the government announced at the June 2026 reopening.
- Tren Tayta Imbabura (trendeltaytaimbabura.gob.ec), the official website of the Ibarra–Andrade Marín section run by the public company INNOVA EP: days, times and fares.
- Dated Ecuadorian press (Primicias, El Universo, El Comercio) for times and fares the operator does not publish itself.
- The railway's own archive for everything historical: routes, stations and the Tren Crucero classes.