The Andean Railway (native name: Ferrocarril Andino) was a

state-owned State ownership, also called public ownership or government ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, property, or enterprise by the national government of a country or state, or a public body representing a community, as opposed to ...

railway company in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

which, towards the end of the 19th century, built and operated a line connecting Villa María in Córdoba Province with the cities of Mendoza, San Luis and

San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John (disambiguation), Saint John, most commonly refers to: * San Juan, Puerto Rico * San Juan, Argentina * San Juan, Metro Manila, a highly urbanized city in the Philippines San Juan may also refer to: Places Arge ...

. The network was later sold to a number of

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

-owned railway companies.

History

The first plan to reach the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

through railway had been carried out with a concession granted to Central Argentine Railway (CAR) and later with the project to make

Buenos Aires Western Railway The Buenos Aires Western Railway (BAWR; Spanish: Ferrocarril Oeste de Buenos Aires), inaugurated in the city of Buenos Aires on 29 August 1857, was the first railway built in Argentina and the start of the extensive rail network that was devel ...

a trans-andean line. The aim of the railway was linking the three provinces of the Cuyo region,

, San Luis and Mendoza with the city of

Rosario Rosario () is the largest city in the central provinces of Argentina, Argentine province of Santa Fe Province, Santa Fe. The city, located northwest of Buenos Aires on the west bank of the Paraná River, is the third-most populous city in the ...

, via the CAR. The AR was the first state-owned railway in Argentina and was founded on 15 November 1867 by decree promulgated in November 1867, from Villa María to Villa Nueva, then extending to Río Cuarto. At the beginning of 1870 the Government signed an agreement to British entrepreneur John Simmons who committed to finish the railway within 3 years at a cost of A$ 26,200 per mile. In November that same years works began. On October 24, 1873, the Villa María–Río Cuarto section was finished. That same the company started works to extend the line to

Villa Mercedes, San Luis Villa Mercedes is a city in the province of San Luis, Argentina. It lies on the center-east of the province, on the left-hand banks of the Quinto River, 32 km from the border with Córdoba, on National Route 148, and near the intersection ...

, opening the line two years later, totalizing 254 km. President of Argentina

Nicolás Avellaneda Nicolás Remigio Aurelio Avellaneda Silva (3 October 1837 – 24 November 1885) was an Argentine politician and journalist, and President of Argentina from 1874 to 1880. Avellaneda's main projects while in office were banking and education ...

attended the ceremony. Once the works finished, the National Government hired J. E. Rogers (whose company had been one of the constructors) to operate the line. The Government required Rogers his employees had to be Argentina-born. Details of the building of the line are as follows: In 1884, the company owned 55

locomotives A locomotive is a rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for longer and heavier freight train ...

, 61

passenger cars A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

, 16 baggage cars and 596

freight car Goods wagons or freight wagons (North America: freight cars), also known as goods carriages, goods trucks, freight carriages or freight trucks, are unpowered railway vehicles that are used for the transportation of cargo. A variety of wagon types ...

s. In 1886 the AR bought the branch line from Villa Mercedes to

La Toma ''La Toma'' ( Spanish: ''The taking'') was a significant legal declaration made by Don Juan de Oñate on April 30, 1598. This event marked the formal assertion of Spanish sovereignty over the territories north of the Rio Grande, in present-day Texa ...

from the ex-'' Ferrocarril Noroeste a La Rioja'' and extended it to Villa Dolores to give a branch line with a total length of 226 km. The construction costs and tariffs of the AR were the lowest of any railway company in Argentina at that time, and when it began to make a profit, the network was sold off to British-owned companies as detailed in Table 2.

Bibliography

* ''British Railways in Argentina 1857-1914: A Case Study of Foreign Investment'' by Colin Lewis - Athlone Press (for the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London), 1983

References

{{Railway Companies in Argentina Defunct railway companies of Argentina Railway companies established in 1867 Railway companies disestablished in 1909 5 ft 6 in gauge railways in Argentina a a a

History

See also

Bibliography

References