Bolivia: Send for the British

In landlocked, miles-high Bolivia, railroads are the main arteries of commerce and communication. Peasants from remote Andean villages carry their produce by train. Almost all of Bolivia's tungsten and tin ore—the nation's most important export commodities—goes by railroad from the mountain mines to the Chilean port of Antofagasta on the Pacific. Without the railroads, Bolivia would find it difficult to exist as a unified nation.

Until 1959, some 800 miles of the country's 1,915 miles of routes were owned and operated by the British companies.

Despite government interference and strikes by Bolivian railroad unions, the British managed to keep their trains...