Brigadier General Diego Lamas is a rural train station and small settlement in the Artigas Department of northern Uruguay. It was named by decree Ley No. 11.857 (15 September 1952), which regularized the nomenclature of several stations on the Cuareim railway line in honor of 19th-century military figures, including Brigadier General Diego Eugenio Lamas (1810–1868), a Uruguayan military officer of the Blanco Party.
Location and infrastructure
The former station lies at kilometre 730 of the broad-gauge railway branch linking Baltasar Brum with the city of Artigas. INE cartography places Diego Lamas on the Belén ridge, roughly 25 km by rural roads east of Baltasar Brum. The track through Diego Lamas forms part of the Rivera line (Red General Activa) and, under the DNTF's 2025 network declaration, is authorized exclusively for freight trains at a maximum speed of 40 km/h, with no regular passenger timetable.
The 2011 locality plan shows about three dozen dwellings ranged along the disused station yard, a pair of unpaved cross streets, and surrounding paddocks devoted to cattle and rice cultivation.
Demographics
Diego Lamas appeared for the first time as a distinct census locality in 2011, when the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) enumerated 128 residents—77 males and 51 females—living in 38 private households. Earlier censuses (1963–2004) did not report separate figures, indicating that the population remained below the national reporting threshold until the early 21st century. During the 2004 census, no population was recorded in this location.
Because the population (128) falls well below the 2,000-resident legal threshold, it has no elected municipality; all municipal functions are exercised directly by the Artigas departmental government.
Census micro-data show a high incidence of unsatisfied basic needs: in 2011, 37.8% of households lacked a cooking space with piped water, 43.2% had no refrigerator, and 29.7% reported multiple comfort-equipment deficits—figures characteristic of settlements with only rudimentary urban services.
Namesake
Diego Eugenio Lamas Palomeque (Montevideo, 12 November 1810 – Concordia, Argentina, 1868) was a Uruguayan military officer who reached the rank of Brigadier General. He served in the internal conflicts of early independent Uruguay and was a member of the Blanco Party. He married Mercedes Delgado and had several children, including Diego and Gregorio Lamas, who also became military officers.
