They conquered the immensity of the country, built it as a nation, carried its golden age: the trains of Argentina, for many disappeared, make a timid but popular return, station after station, without convincing that this nostalgia has a viable future.
Due south-east, towards a blinding dawn sun in the distance on the Rio de la Plata, the CNR CKD8 diesel-electric locomotive gradually leaves the fields and bites into the suburbs of Buenos Aires. In the wagons, passengers dozing but happy that “the trains are coming back”.
From San Pedro (170 km away), they reach the capital for a business, a medical examination, a relative. They know that if they won’t go quickly (3:20) they are traveling cheaply (1,130 pesos/5.10 dollars) and that tonight (11:00 p.m.) they will be back. An impossible journey for years.
“Before, there were trains, but only from time to time. This one runs every day. And changes my life,” smiles Noemi Peralta, 52, who came to Buenos Aires to buy wholesale clothes. it will resell on the markets in Rosario. “With the bus trip at 5,000 pesos, my margin went up in smoke, or I had to raise my prices. There, I’m delighted.”
Justo Daract, Gobernador Castro, La Picada… the Peronist government (centre-left), after taking over concessions from the private sector, restores and reopens stations, sometimes small ones, relaunches links abandoned for 20, 30 years, or even more.
“We have reconnected 66 localities with our freight or passenger trains, and reactivated 17 rail links,” proclaimed President Alberto Fernandez in his general policy speech in March.
When the previous government of Liberal Mauricio Macri (2015-19) had closed 12, adds his Minister of Transport.
The train holds a special place in the history of the Argentines: they were practically born together. “Unlike Europe, here as in North America, before the train there was nothing. It was a way for the state to develop, or create, a country that did not yet exist, or so little”, recalls Jorge Waddell, historian teaching public policy and railway history.
The railway museum of Buenos Aires, the majestic stations of Constitucion (1887), Retiro (1915), mixing Victorian influences – the English then managed most of the railways – and Beaux-Arts, attest to this rich railway past. .
A rich past, when Argentina, land of massive immigration, “country of the future”, projected itself into the “breadbasket of the world” (cereals, cattle), and saw the multiplication of competing private railways. Until counting an absurd network, with parallel tracks sometimes a few kilometers apart…
Of the 45,000 km of post-war track, only about 15,000 remain (27,000 in France, for comparison), of which 5,000 are barely devoted to passenger transport in a country five times the size of France.
Nationalization in 1948 under Juan Domingo Peron, but lack of investment required by the vast network, dismantling and disinterest in the 1990s under Carlos Menem…
The train is also political in Argentina, and everyone has their explanation, their culprit on the progressive “exit from the rail”. In parallel with the relentless rise of the plane and the truck in the 20th century. And the pathological debt of the country.
“The train was a terminally ill person connected to an artificial lung and we just pulled the plug”, analyzes Jorge Waddell. Which raises the question of what the railroad can, pragmatically, be in 2023, “in a bankrupt country, in need of foreign currency, but where the price of a train ticket is assumed at 5% by the passenger, 95% subsidized by the state…?”
Trenes Argentinos, the public entity which took over the management of part of the network in 2014 – private concessions remain, for freight in particular – assumes the figures and the illogicality. Its CEO, Martin Marinucci speaks of “service for the communities”, of “social role”, of “citizens’ rights” on the train.
Between San Pedro and Buenos Aires, in the sky and white train of Trenes Argentinos, passengers taste the spacious air-conditioned cars (purchased from China in 2014), the restaurant car, unlimited hot water for the essential mate. ..
Like Eduardo Llama, retired “back” to the train for 3-4 years, many complain about journeys “slower than 50 years ago” – obsolescence of the network, level crossings oblige. But evoke with a smile childhood memories, family journeys, “when everyone took the train”.
“Failed countries like Argentina often have nostalgia for the past, because it is the only positive point of reference. But the train is essential in our past”, muses Mr Waddell.
26/04/2023 10:07:11 – SAN PEDRO (Argentine) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP