Claudio Santana / Pool via EPA

An aerial picture shows part of the route of the Arica-La Paz railway during its centennial commemoration, in Chile on May 13, 2013.

One of the world's most remarkable railway lines celebrated its centenary on Monday. The 273-mile track traverses desert and mountain landscapes as it rises from sea-level in the Chilean port of Arica to a height of 13,800 feet en route to the Bolivian city of La Paz.

Claudio Santana / AFP - Getty Images

Inaugurated on May 13, 1913, the line has a colorful history and remains a source of controversy, according to a report by BBC News:

The railway was built by Chile to compensate Bolivia for its loss of land during the 1879-1883 War of the Pacific.

Chile won the war and annexed a swathe of Bolivian land roughly the size of Greece, leaving Bolivia landlocked.

The idea behind the railway was to give Bolivia access to the sea for its exports. It cost Chile £2.75m to build - around £195m ($300m) in today's money.

The Bolivians still demand sovereignty over at least a part of their former Pacific coastline, and last month took their case to the International Court in The Hague.

Claudio Santana / Pool via EPA

A conductor waits for passengers in Arica on May 13, 2013. Passenger services stopped running on the line in 1996, according to the BBC, but a special train ran to mark the railway's centenary.

Claudio Santana / Pool via EPA

Passengers ride on the Arica-La Paz railway during its centennial commemoration on May 13, 2013.

Claudio Santana / Pool via EPA

Passengers wait to board a train in Arica on May 13, 2013.

Claudio Santana / Pool via EPA

GRAPHIC WARNING: This post contains images which some viewers may find disturbing.

Kevin Frayer / AP

An Indian woman weeps as she watches from a staircase as rescue workers tend to the bodies of those killed in a stampede on a railway platform at the main railway station in Allahabad, India, Feb. 10,

At least 18 people were killed in a stampede in the Indian city of Allahabad on Sunday as Hindus returned from a river dip at the world's largest religious festival.

 An overcrowded railway station footbridge buckled and a railing collapsed, sending some people slipping down the stairs and triggering the stampede, a top state government official told Reuters, not wishing to be quoted by name.

-- Reported by Reuters

Full story: At least 18 killed during India festival stampede

Kevin Frayer / AP

An Indian man weeps as he and other family members mourn next to the body of a relative who was killed.

Kevin Frayer / AP

Indian police carry the body of a pilgrim who was killed.

Manan Vatsyayana / AFP - Getty Images

A woman lies on a bed at the Railway Hospital in Allahabad after being injured.

Saurabh Das / AP

Thousands of people crowd a platform waiting for trains to take them back home after visiting the Maha Kumbh festival in Allahabad, India.

Jorge Saenz / AP

Students wearing traditional dresses walk near a 1960-era steam locomotive in the Carlos Antonio Lopez Railway maintenance shed, currently a museum, before dancing at a cultural fair in Sapucai, Paraguay, on Oct. 12. The railway, inaugurated on Oct. 21, 1861 for cargo and passengers, shut down in 2001 before being resurrected in 2012 as a tourism attraction. Train company president Marcelo Wagner says foreign investors have expressed interest in revitalizing the railway commercially with electric powered trains, but until plans are concreted, the steam powered trains will continue as a tourist attraction.

Jorge Saenz / AP

An abandoned Carlos Antonio Lopez Railway passenger car sits empty at the Luque train station in Paraguay on Oct. 12.

The Carlos Antonio Lopez Railway officially opened on Oct. 21, 1861 for cargo and passenger use in Paraguay. The steam railway was shut down after 140 years, before being resurrected in 2012 as a tourism attraction. Train company president Marcelo Wagner says foreign investors have expressed interest in revitalizing the railway commercially with electric powered trains, but until plans are cemented, the steam railway will continue as a tourist attraction.

--Reported by The Associated Press

Read the full story.

Editor's note: The AP made these pictures available to NBC News on Oct. 17.

Jorge Saenz / AP

A 1960-era steam locomotive from the Carlos Antonio Lopez Railway carries tourists in Asuncion, Paraguay on Oct. 7.

Jorge Saenz / AP

Vapor exits a 1960-era steam locomotive from the Carlos Antonio Lopez Railway as it runs in Asuncion, Paraguay on Oct. 7.

Jorge Saenz / AP

A tourist takes pictures as he rides the Carlos Antonio Lopez Railway 1960-era steam locomotive in Asuncion, Paraguay on Oct. 7.

Related content:

• Police evict squatters from Ava Guarani indigenous group in Paraguay
• Berlin commuter train derails
• Life on the tracks at a Thai railway bazaar
• Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev takes his cabinet on a railway journey
• Elephant killed by train receives proper burial

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Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, center, holds a cabinet meeting to discuss railway ticket pricing on a train leaving Omsk on Aug 6, 2012. Deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich is at left and Enegy Minister Alexander Novak at right.

Dmitry Astakhov / Government Press Service via RIA Novosti - AP

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visits a railway museum in the village of Tpoki in Siberia on Aug. 6, 2012.

See more images of Dmitry Medvedev on PhotoBlog.

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Ilya Naymushin / Reuters

An Orthodox priest talks to a woman in front of the church carriage of the Doctor Voino-Yasenecky Saint Luka train, a free mobile consultative and diagnostic medical center, on April 27 at a railway station in Zaozyorny, 81 miles east of Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

Ilya Naymushin / Reuters

A doctor checks a pregnant woman aboard the Doctor Voino-Yasenecky Saint Luka train on April 27 during a stop at the railway station in Zaozyorny, Russia.

Ilya Naymushin / Reuters

Patients stand in the registry line aboard the Doctor Voino-Yasenecky Saint Luka train, which serves as a free consultative and diagnostic medical center, at a railway station in Zaozyorny, Russia on April 27.

Ilya Naymushin / Reuters

A doctor checks a patient aboard the Doctor Voino-Yasenecky Saint Luka train on April 27 during a stop in the Siberian town of Zaozyorny, Russia.

Ilya Naymushin / Reuters

A pediatrician checks two children aboard the Doctor Voino-Yasenecky Saint Luka train at a railway station on April 27 in the town of Zaozyorny, Russia.

The Doctor Voino-Yasenecky Saint Luka train serves as a free, mobile consultative and diagnostic medical center that carries medics and medical equipment yearly from the main regional city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia to distant settlements of the Krasnoyarsk and Khakassia regions in Siberia where hospitals and clinics are scarce. The train, named after outstanding Russian surgeon Valentin Voino-Yasenecky, an orthodox bishop and a Gulag prisoner, also has a carriage that operates as a mobile Orthodox church.

Ilya Naymushin / Reuters

An Orthodox priest baptizes a family at the church aboard the Doctor Voino-Yasenecky Saint Luka train, a free and mobile medical center, at a railway station of the town of Zaozyorny, Russia on April 27. The train also has a carriage that operates as a mobile Orthodox church.

Ilya Naymushin / Reuters

An Orthodox priest rings the bells on the church carriage of the Doctor Voino-Yasenecky Saint Luka train on April 27 during a stop in the Siberian town of Zaozyorny.

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Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

A man alights from a carriage, as others wait to board the Amritsar-bound train at Nizamuddin railway station on Feb. 6, 2012 in New Delhi, India.

Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

People cross railway tracks close to Nizamuddin station on Feb. 6, 2012.

Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

A passenger checks his seat on the Amritsar-bound train with a conductor at Nizamuddin station on Feb. 6, 2012.

Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

A family wait to board their train at Nizamuddin station on Feb. 6, 2012.

Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station in New Delhi is one of the hubs of India's remarkable railway network. The state-owned Indian Railways runs 12,000 trains a day, covers 39,000 miles of track, employs 1.4 million people and is the world's second biggest rail network under single management, according to Getty Images.

Arif Ali / AFP - Getty Images

Pakistan Railway workers repair an engine at a factory in Lahore on Dec. 3, 2011, in a picture made available on Dec. 21.

Farooq Naeem / AFP - Getty Images

Railway workers leave after washing train carriages in Rawalpindi on Dec. 3, 2011.

Corruption, mismanagement and neglect have driven Pakistan Railways to the brink of ruin, Agence France Presse reports, leaving millions of passengers stranded and consigning to the scrapheap a much-loved legacy of British rule. 

In the three years since the current government took power the railway has retired more than half of its trains, leaving just 100 to cover a country larger than Britain and Germany combined. The state-owned enterprise is expected to lose 35 billion rupees ($390 million) in the current fiscal year.

On a more positive note for intrepid travelers, The Associated Press reports that Afghanistan opened its first major rail service on Wednesday. A train successfully completed a trial run along a newly-built 47-mile track between Mazar-i-Sharif and the border with Uzbekistan, the first stage in an ambitious plan to open up new trade routes for the landlocked country.

Achmad Ibrahim / AP

Villagers lie on a railway track and wait for a train to rattle by for electricity therapy in Rawa Buaya, Jakarta, Indonesia, on July 26. People have been participating in the practise believing that the the electricity current from the track could cure various diseases.

The AP reports:

Ignoring the red-and-white danger sign, Sri Mulyati walks slowly to the train tracks outside Indonesia's bustling capital, lies down and stretches her body across the rails.

Like the nearly dozen others lined up along the track, the 50-year-old diabetes patient has all but given up on doctors and can't afford the expensive medicines they prescribe.

In her mind, she has only one option left: electric therapy.

Achmad Ibrahim / AP

"I'll keep doing this until I'm completely cured," said Mulyati, twitching visibly as an oncoming passenger train sends an extra rush of current racing through her body.

She leaps from tracks as it approaches and then, after the last carriage rattles slowly by, climbs back into position.

Pseudo-medical treatments are wildly popular in many parts of Asia — where rumors about those miraculously cured after touching a magic stone or eating dung from sacred cows can attract hundreds, sometimes thousands.

That may be especially true in Indonesia, where chronic funding shortages and chaotic decentralization efforts since the 1998 ouster of longtime dictator Suharto have left many disillusioned with the state-sponsored health system, said Marius Widjajarta, chairman of the Indonesian Health Consumers Empowerment Foundation.

Achmad Ibrahim / AP

Medical experts say there is no evidence lying on the rails does any good.

But Mulyati insists it provides more relief for her symptoms — high-blood pressure, sleeplessness and high cholesterol — than any doctor has since she was first diagnosed with diabetes 13 years ago.