Compañía General de Ferrocarriles en la Provincia de Buenos Aires

The Compañía General de Ferrocarriles en la Provincia de Buenos Aires (CGBA) (in French: "Compagnie générale de chemins de fer dans la Province de Buenos Aires") was a French–owned company, formed in 1904, which operated a metre-gauge railway network in Argentina.[1][2]

Compañía General de Ferrocarriles en la Provincia de Buenos Aires
Locomotive and workers in Rosario, 1918.
Overview
Native nameCompagnie générale de chemins de fer dans la Province de Buenos Aires'
LocaleBuenos Aires Province
Rosario
Termini
Service
TypeInter-city
Operator(s)Argentren (2015)[lower-alpha 1]
History
Opened1908[lower-alpha 2]
Closed1948 (1948)
Technical
Track gauge1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in)
Route map

History

In 1904 the company took over a concession to build lines between the ports of Buenos Aires and Rosario, and to La Plata, together with other branch lines in the west and south of Buenos Aires Province. These lines were built as detailed below:[3]

CGBA Progress
Section Length (km) Date Opened
Buenos Aires - Rosario3951908-01-25
Villars - 9 de Julio2021909-03-01
González Catán - Port of La Plata881910-07-27
Pergamino - Vedia1221910-12-05
Patricios - Buenos Aires2241911-12-07
9 de Julio - General Villegas2321912-12-01
Buchanan train station, September 1910

The company always faced tough competition from the various large British-owned railway companies operating in the Province who had already built lines in those areas where most profit was to be made. As a result of this competition, plans to build a line between Buenos Aires and Bahía Blanca and other branch lines were abandoned.

When the Government of Juan Domingo Perón took over the railways in 1948, the CGBA became part of Ferrocarril Belgrano. In 1961 the Government of Arturo Illia decided to close all the lines that were uneconomic so many branches were closed, such as the CGBA's G3 (to Port of La Plata), G4 (to General Villegas), G5 (to Victorino de la Plaza) and G6 (to Vedia).

Freight train running, c. 1910s

Although some branches would be re-opened later, those reopenings were temporal, being the most of them definitely closed in 1977 by the de facto government in power in Argentina by then.[3]

Of those branches, only G remained active but only to González Catán. During the railway privatisation in Argentina in 1992, the line was taken over by Metropolitano, that operated the line until the contract of concession was revoked by the Government of Argentina in 2007. As a result, the Buenos Aires-González Catán branch was operated by the consortium UGOFE until February 2014 when the whole Belgrano Sur Line was re-privatised and given in concession to private company "Argentren" of Emepa Group. UGOFE was therefore dissolved.[4][5][6]

  • Las Marianas
    Las Marianas
  • Mercedes platform
    Mercedes platform
  • Mercedes building
    Mercedes building
  • Angel Etcheverry
    Angel Etcheverry
  • La Verde
    La Verde
  • Moll
    Moll

See also

Notes
  1. After the closing of branches that started in 1961, only the Buenos Aires — González Catán branch is active as of Jan 2015.
  2. The Buenos Aires — Rosario section was the first to be inaugurated.

References
  1. Historia Integral Argentina. Vol. 5. Centro Editor de América Latina. 1971. p. 183.
  2. "Argentine working timetables - narrow & standard gauge". Archived from the original on 3 July 2004.
  3. "Historia de la Compañía General de Buenos Aires". Plataforma 14 (in Spanish).
  4. "Trenes: le dan a Roggio el Mitre y el San Martín y a Emepa, el Roca y el Belgrano Sur". La Nación (in Spanish). 12 February 2014.
  5. "Las privadas volverán a operar la mayoría de las líneas ferroviarias". Clarín (in Spanish). 12 February 2014.
  6. "El Gobierno estableció un nuevo régimen de operaciones de las líneas ferroviarias". Telam (in Spanish). 12 February 2014.
  • Regalsky, Andrés M. (October 1989). "Foreign Capital, Local Interests and Railway Development in Argentina: French Investments in Railways, 1900-1914". Journal of Latin American Studies. 21 (3): 425–452. doi:10.1017/S0022216X00018502. S2CID 145791632.
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