Ferrocentral was an Argentine private railway company, with a name being a portmanteau of the Spanish words for "Central Rail". It operated long-distance passenger trains from its base at Retiro Mitre station in Buenos Aires to several locations in northern Argentina, running on Ferrocarril Mitre's Indian gauge tracks.
The company also ran regional services (such as Tren de las Sierras) on Ferrocarril Belgrano's tracks in Córdoba Province."Tren de las Sierras" on Córdoba Turismo website The National Government invested $10 million to re-open the line."Mañana regresa el Tren de las Sierras", La Voz del Interior, 11 Aug 2007
History
All of the train routes managed by Ferrocentral had been previously operated by Ferrocarriles Argentinos, the country's now-defunct national passenger railroad corporation. After the privatisation of Ferrocarriles Argentinos starting in 1991, many train services across Argentina were indefinitely discontinued. Since the year 2005, however, Ferrocentral was formed and successfully resurrected some passenger lines.
Ferrocentral was established in 2005, being formed by two railway companies, Nuevo Central Argentino (concessionary of Ferrocarril Mitre's freight services) and Ferrovías (which operates the Belgrano Norte Line) with the purpose of running trains from Retiro station in Buenos Aires to the city of Córdoba."Reinauguraron el tren Retiro-Córdoba" Clarín, 18 Mar 2005"La vuelta del Rayo de Sol" (Archive)
In 2006 Ferrocentral started to run trains to Tucumán, with stops in Rosario and La Banda, a city of Santiago del Estero Province."Vuelve el tren a Tucumán", Riel FM , 12 Sep 2005 (Archive) Long-distance passenger trains were tractioned by GT22 diesel locomotives."Las incansables GT-22 (II)" by Andrés J. Bilstein on Portal de Trenes, 23 Jun 2014 Most services operated in the late night and early morning hours as the rail lines are used for transporting cargo during the daytime.
One year later the company also re-opened the Tren de las Sierras ("Mountain Range Train") of Córdoba Province that connected the cities of Córdoba and Cosquín.
On 2013, Ministry of Transport of Argentina, Florencio Randazzo, signed a resolution transferring the services to Córdoba and San Miguel de Tucumán to State-owned companies SOFSE (also known as "Trenes Argentinos") and Administración de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (ADIF).Resolución N° 1093/13: "Ferrocentral pasa a la órbita de SOFSE", Official Bulletin of Argentina"El tren Tucumán-Retiro vuelve a mano estatal", La Gaceta, 20 Sep 2013
In addition, some problems with ticket sales were reported by users, accusing the company to give a poor service for online purchasing, as well as the virtually nil availability of seats."Ferrocentral y la imposible tarea de comprar un pasaje a Tucumán", La Noticia1, 23 Sep 2014
In November 2014, the Government of Argentina (through the State-owned company Trenes Argentinos S.A.) took over the services to Rosario, Tucumán and Córdoba, leaving Ferrocentral inactive.Argentine government takes control of FerroCentral International Railway Journal October 2013 page 9Estatizaron los trenes de pasajeros de larga distancia Clarín 8 November 2014El Gobierno estatizó los servicios de ferrocarriles de larga distancia Infobae 7 November 2014
Services Services operated as of October 2014:"Servicios" on Ferrocentral website (Archive)
Start End Journey time (h) Days p.w. Opened Retiro Rosario Norte 9 3 2005 Córdoba 14 4 2005 Tucumán 24 2 2005 Córdoba Villa María 3 2 2004 Alta Córdoba Cosquín 2 7 2007
References
External links
Official website (archived, 17 Dec 2008)