Ferrocarriles Argentinos

Background

Following a prolonged period of hyperinflation in the 1980s, accompanied by a steep increase in fiscal deficit and a sharp fall in reserves, the Argentine government, under the presidency of Carlos Menem from 1989, initiated a series of neoliberal reforms which included the privatisation of public utility companies (telephones, gas, electricity and water) together with the entire railway network.

The plan was to break up the network into segments and to grant concessions to private companies for their operation through competitive bidding. Freight and passenger services were separated and, since most of the intercity passenger services were not commercially attractive to the private sector, the government offered these to the provinces. The remaining passenger services in the city of Buenos Aires, including the five lines of the Metro, were potentially more viable and were treated separately.

After the closure of FADEL, Ferrocarriles Argentinos committed a company the manufacturing of 280 locomotives that would be powered with the 280 engines that had been acquired to FIAT, originally intended to be used in the FADEL machines to be built. The new manufacturer was a local Italian-Argentine consortium named "Gruppo Aziende Italiane e Argentine" (mostly known for its acronym "GAIA"). The first 80 units and their engines were totally manufactured in Italy and the remaining 200 were built in Argentina between 1964 and 1970, using mostly national components. Despite the efforts to make a reliable locomotive for the Argentine railways, the GAIA machines did not satisfy the expectations and many units would be removed from circulations, remaining only a few locomotives serving at FA.

In 1958 Sociedad Material Ferroviario ("Materfer") was established by Fiat Ferroviaria, through Fiat Concord, a consortium formed by many FIAT subsidiaries operating in Argentina. The company built a factory to manufacture rolling stock in the country to provide goods for FA.

That same year the Ministry of Transport of Argentina signed an agreement with Fiat Ferroviaria to acquire 210 brand-new railcars. Those machines were formed by 2 units powered by a FIAT diesel engine at 660 HP. The railcars could reach speeds of 115 km/h. Their low weight made them suitable to run on any railway line. The vehicles also had two driver cabins, one on each end of the car, which reduced the time of manoeuvres at termini stations, particularly in urban services.

Railcars were built in the FIAT factories of Turin, Decauville and Córdoba. Although the first railcars were manufactured in Italy and France, most of them were made in Argentina, in a factory specially designed for that assignment located in Ferreyra, Córdoba and named "Materfer". In 1962, the 7131, a railcar manufactured by FIAT Concord, made its debut in the Villa Ballester-Zárate and Victoria-Capilla del Señor sections of General Mitre Railway, then managed by Ferrocarriles Argentinos. Those light cars replaced Ganz Works railcars that had been run on those lines since 1938.

Materfer also produced coaches that looked like Werkspoor's that were used for long-distance services to Bariloche (Los Arrayanes), Tucumán (Independencia), Posadas (Cataratas), Mendoza (El Libertador) with international connections with Chile and the Expreso del Sur.

Metropolitan services

By Decree 520/91, a new state-owned company, Ferrocarriles Metropolitanos S.A. (FEMESA) was created in 1991 to operate metropolitan services in the city and suburbs of Buenos Aires Province until the privatisation process was carried out, effectively breaking them from the national network. From then on, Ferrocarriles Argentinos only operated freight and long-distance passenger services until their concession to private companies.

Projects not only included Buenos Aires but cities of Córdoba, Rosario and Mendoza with the idea of establishing urban services that included rapid transit transport. In the case of Córdoba, the plan foresaw to unify the two stations in the city and to connect Ferreyra and Argüello districts. The project for Mendoza foresaw to build a new terminal near the El Plumerillo Airport. Nevertheless, the plans were never carried out.

Long-distance services closure

Following the failure of previous rationalisation efforts to curb Ferrocarriles Argentinos' financial deficit, on 10 July 1992 president Menem signed Decree 1168/92, introducing an emergency diagram for long-distance services across the country as an intermediate step to facilitate the privatisation process, beginning on 1 August and effectively setting 31 December 1992 as the expiration date for all passenger operations. Luxury services were eliminated, frequencies were sharply reduced and most comforts done away with, causing a further drop in quality.

In December, Menem granted a final extension until 10 March 1993, when all long-distance passenger services were definitely cancelled, stripping most of the provinces of their rail links with Buenos Aires. Such was the case of Mendoza, Salta, Jujuy, Entre Ríos, Corrientes, Misiones, Mendoza, San Juan, San Luis, Catamarca and La Rioja.

The closure left many villages isolated from the main cities of Argentina, causing younger inhabitants to depart from their hometowns in search of better opportunities. This happened in cities such as La Banda, Laguna Paiva, San Cristóbal, Navarro, Las Marianas among many others. While in 1960 trains had carried 539 million of passengers, thirty years after the number decreased to 264 million. Between 1991 and 1992 urban and intercity services were cancelled due to lack of locomotives to run. In San Martín and Roca lines trains had only two coaches in poor conditions. In addition, railway unions made sudden strikes that left passengers abandoned midway. During the last year of state administration there were 239,000 services cancelled or delayed.

Before the closure, the National government had offered the provinces the possibility of reactivating intercity railway lines at their own expense. Few provinces expressed interest and even fewer did reach an agreement with the central government to resume services, among which were Buenos Aires (establishing its own company, Ferrobaires), Tucumán (with Tucumán Ferrocarriles running trains since 1997), Río Negro (Servicios Ferroviarios Patagónico, still operating), Córdoba, La Pampa (also with services by Ferrobaires) and Chubut. Likewise, the government also transferred jurisdiction over some branches to the provinces, such as Viedma-Bariloche and Ingeniero Jacobbaci-Esquel to Río Negro and Chubut (as the railway crossed both provinces); Córdoba-Cruz del Eje to Córdoba Province. Salta received the Tren a las Nubes and Mendoza took over Transandine Railway. In all the cases, the procedures were ruled by Law n° 2.873.