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The Retiro railway stations in Buenos Aires/Argentina The Argentinean railways celebrated in 2007 their 150th birthday, and therefore it is only adequate to deal with them. The Retiro station is one of the oldest and and a the same time largest railway station of the country. Retiro not only is the name of the district, but really also stands for three stations close to each other at the Avenida Ramos Mejía. On the square in front of the station the Clock Tower reminds us of the Englishmen who built the first railways in Argentina. An overview of the three stations can be obtained with the help of Google Earth, if this program is installed. Closest to the city and to the Avenida Libertador is Retiro Mitre, originally the terminal of the Ferrocarril General Bartolomé Mitre. A picture of the building can be found below, and today this is the terminal of TBA, Trenes de Buenos Aires, who from there operates diesel long distance trains via Rosario to Santa Fé and electrical suburban trains to José León Suarez (there can be found the workshops and the car barns), to Tigre and to Bartolomé Mitre (from where the Tren de la Costa also operates to Tigre). Diesel suburban trains operate to Villa Ballester - Zárate and with a change of trains at Victoria to Zelaya - Capilla del Señor, all via the non electrified continuation of the line to José León Suãrez. Ferrocentral operates diesel long distance trains via Rosario to Córdoba and Túcuman. The next station, the next substantial building, originally the one of the Ferrocarril General Manuel Belgrano, serves as terminal of Ferrovías for their only line to Villa Rosa. Here only diesel locomotive hauled suburban trains operate which however have been successfully modernised. The last station, since erection in 1930 a temporary wooden building (the originally planned definitive building was never built) was originally the one of the Ferrocarril General San Martin, later the one of Metropolitano which however due to failure to renew the line and rolling stock was taken over by the joint venture UGOFE/LSM which uses modernised rolling stock. This line crosses all the other lines on a viaduct after leaving the terminal and operates via Palermo and Caseros to Pilar using diesel locomotive hauled suburban rolling stock. As a long distance line Ferrobaires operates further on to Junin. In earlier times it was possible to continue to Mendoza, with fast diesel motor coaches in 1937 in 10 hours. Today there are only overnight buses. The original Retiro station on the location of today's Retiro Mitre was built in 1876 and consisted of a station building with a platform, two tracks and a second platform. This installation was replaced between 1909 and 1915 by the actual building which was planned by English architects, manufactured completely in Liverpool and assembled in Buenos Aires. At that time it was rated to be the largest railway station of the world. In this building since 1948 could be found the offices of Ferrocarriles Argentinos. Today there are the offices of ONABE, Organismo Nacional Administrador de Benes del Estado, which administrates the entire material and rolling stock as well as the infrastructure of the railways in possession of the Argentinean state and is responsible for the historical heritage, and the offices of TBA and Ferrocentral whilst Ferrovías, UGOFE and Ferrobaires have offices in the terminals from where they operate. Following the Avenida Libertador, the wide main road in the northerly direction (in fact following the railway lines) after a few hundred yards on the right hand at No. 405 (all uneven house numbers are on the right hand side) can be found the Museo Nacional Ferroviário, also part of ONABE. Over a kind of chicken stair the somewhat dusty museum can be reached which has no internet web site. Close by is also the large bus station, Terminal de ónibus Retiro, with almost all long distance lines. If you leave from there by bus, you first traverse a slum area, optimistically called "Vila". Between the Mitre and Belgrano station a goods track leads south. If you follow the tracks you will find not so far from there the Dársena Norte where the fast boats and ships to Uruguay leave. This is operated by the Uruguayan company Buquebus (literally ship bus) with a precision and efficacy unknown elsewhere in Latin America. From there it is not far to Puerto Madero, in former times a harbour with warehouses which has been rebuilt to an upper class residence area, and where will be encountered the new experimental tram line with vehicles from Mulhouse/France, and next the single track tunnel line with diesel rail cars to Castelar which formerly served as coal transport railway and which shortly after Once station joins the surface lines to Moreno. Inside the Retiro Mitre terminal can also be found the terminal of line C of the subway (Subte) of Buenos Aires which goes to the second large railway terminal Constitución and on its way offers connexions to all the other subway lines. Later, lines E and H should also terminate at Retiro, and possibly the new tram line if more passengers can be found. Views of the beautiful interior of Retiro Mitre station can be found of the main concourse (Vestibul) and the ticket hall (Bolleteria). Main source of this information was the excellent web site of Wikipedia of which the English version (link in the Spanish version) is more articulate on long distance traffic. In addition personal information came from the web masters long stay in Buenos Aires. All pictures were produced by FLB member Thomas Hollenstein.
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