The collision on Peru’s highest-profile railway, important to the country’s tourism industry, left one dead and dozens injured in the early afternoon of Dec 30.
In a letter to the office of the prime minister, LVMH’s Belmond Ltd said Carlyle’s Inca Rail had transited through an unauthorised part of the tracks, leading to a head-on crash between two trains that were going in opposite directions.
“The Inca Rail train did not stop at the assigned spot, moving through an unauthorised stretch,” said the letter signed by Belmond executive Laurent Carrasset, which was seen by Bloomberg.
“Approximately 400m later,” the letter added, “it crashed”.
The railway between Cusco and Machu Picchu transports some 3 million passengers a year and Belmond is the dominant player through two joint ventures where the luxury company remains the operator.
Through PeruRail it operates luxury trains while through Ferrocarril Transandino, Belmond also operates the railway concession over which both its trains and Inca Rail’s travel.
In the letter, Carrasset said the railway has single tracks and is managed with forced stops and occasional detours so trains going in opposite directions can alternate.
At the time of the incident, Inca Rail’s train was meant to stop and wait for PeruRail to get into one of those detours, he added.
However, instead it continued on past the limit of its authorised track area.
Inca Rail said in a statement that jumping to conclusions before authorities have weighed in “may generate biased interpretations of facts that are still being verified”.
The company added it is cooperating with authorities and that it stands in solidarity with those who were injured and with the one person who was killed, the driver of the Inca Rail train.
In 2024, PeruRail had a 74% market share in the Machu Picchu route, according to government statistics, while Inca Rail had the remainder.
“The crash also left some 2,000 passengers stranded, who had to wait about 12 hours to be evacuated,” Carrasset’s letter said.
Machu Picchu is not accessible by road. Tourists normally take the train or hike, which can take days.
Famed for its stonework and stunning views of the Andes Mountains, Machu Picchu is Peru’s most popular tourism destination among foreign tourists, many of whom travel there on luxury trains.
Peru’s tourism ministry said yesterday that train service was operating normally and that the railway operator had surveyed the area and confirmed the tracks were not impacted by the incident.