It is 892 km long and connects the largest open pit iron ore mine in the world, in Carajás, southeastern Pará, to the Ponta da Madeira Port, in São Luís (state of Maranhão). In all, 120 million tons of ore and 350,000 passengers travel on it each year. About 35 compositions circulate on the tracks simultaneously, including one of the world's longest train in regular operation, with 330 cars and measuring 3.3 kilometers in length.

Inaugurated in 1985, the Carajás Railroad is not only large: It also leads the ranking of the most efficient railways in Brazil thanks to our constant investments in technology. The resources range from an advanced drive system and control center to simulators and radio frequency identification.

The first 15 km of rails of the Carajás Railroad were laid in August 1982. The railroad's feasibility studies and engineering projects got underway almost a decade earlier, in 1974. But the official inauguration only occurred 11 years later, on February 28, 1985.

The first passengers arrived in March 1986. The following year came the soybeans. The railroad's trains started carrying grain and, that very year, oil products were added to the list of materials transported by the compositions.

Today, the trains carry dry bulk (soy and other grains), liquids (fuels and fertilizers, among others), and iron ore.

The EFC is also interconnected with two other railroads: the Companhia Ferroviária Nordeste (CFN) and Ferrovia Norte-Sul. The first crosses, mainly, seven states of the Northeast, while the second the states of Goiás, Tocantins and Maranhão, facilitating the export of grain produced in the northern state of Tocantins by means of the Ponta da Madeira Port, in Maranhão.