AFE Uruguay: To keep passenger traffic going,  also "accident victims"  like the Ganz locomotive Nr. 906 are being rebuilt! Photo M. Benoit, Montevideo

We welcome Mr. Reinhard Zeller from Kaindorf in Austria. He joined us in May 2006.
 

There was only little response to our survey about the distribution of the FLB member list to all members. The few responses were all positive, only professional and financial situation as well as the age should not be forwarded. As this data is not registered in the FLB files, the list is therefore safe. It lists just name, full address and Email address, and for the "public" list the phone numbers have been deleted in order to avoid any nuisance. FLB members will receive a copy of the list along with this issue of  VoT sent out by mail and are called to check their data. Updates please to info@fahrplancenter.com or by fax to +41 41 832 01 35.
 

As fast as things can go: The Tren Panamericano has to be put on hold, because lots of things happened in the past few weeks which make it unlikely to run it in 2007. There is a strong tendency for re-nationalization of the railways in Bolivia, in Brazil a change of ownership occurred and restrictions for technical reasons were imposed by the federal transportation board, a bridge collapsed in northern Argentina, and also the La Paz - Arica line is still completely closed. All FLB members receive the Panamericano Info No. 3 with more details (sorry, in German only).

Ferrocentral in Argentina doubled the frequency of its "Estrella del Norte" Buenos Aires - Tucumán from 1 to 2 round trips per week during the busy month of July. The same is planned for mid December to mid March. All tickets for this 4 week period were sold within one week! Ferrobaires put in service with the "Expreso del Atlántico" a completely modernised and more comfortable train (similar to the "Marplatense"). It ran twice weekly in July and will run again in the summer (December to March) between Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata. Ferrobaires/UEPFP resumed passenger services between Junín and Vedia in the northwest of the Buenos Aires province. The "Tren a las Nubes" Salta - Viaducto La Polvorilla should run again from the beginning of 2007 as track repair has started and a new syndicate for its operation is determined.

In Brazil, the "Trem do Pantanal" will finally operate on the 88 km section from Corumbá to Porto Esperança. Trips will start towards the end of 2006 as track work is almost completed and now the station buildings are being put in shape.

In spring 2006, the tourist train San José - Calderas in Costa Rica was re-introduced partly, it runs on Saturdays and Sundays from San José to Balsa de Atenas and back.

In Honduras some irregular passenger trains are running out of San Pedro Sula, see separate article.

News from our correspondent Nicolas Müller, Talca

The Talca - Constitución line is again in troubles, caused by landslides after ongoing rainfall. From Talca to González Bastías the line was always operational, and now one railcar could be transported to Constitución for an isolated operation. The word spreads that the interruption will last 2 to 4 weeks, but this seems to be unrealistic in light of the USD1 to 2 Million needed for the repair work Local authorities talk about USD0,8 to 1 Million to repair the worst damage, EFE calculates a cost of USD1,2 Million and regional parliamentarians mention a USD2 Million investment in order to allow a safe operation of the line also in the winter period. However, to close the line is absolutely out of question!

As a consequence of the problems with Argentina about oil and gas, the call for bids for the reconstruction of the Transandino Central line Los Andes - Border - Mendoza have been postponed until further notice.

The track between Chimbarongo and Teno on the EFE mainline Santiago - Chillán is currently being relocated to an alignment parallel to the Panamericana  highway which had been prepared a long time ago (before the Pinochet era). With this, some curves are cut off and higher speeds are possible. At this stage, the rails are being laid and the overhead wiring assembled. An existing but damaged bridge is repaired at the same occasion.

On the Chillán - Temuco section, flooding heavily damaged the mainline and interrupted any traffic. Damage has to be repaired at a cost of more than USD1 Million.

The fares policy of EFE is obviously against the passengers; despite the many interruptions caused by natural disasters and track works, the price level is now more than twice the fares of bus transport. Fare refunds due to the mentioned interruptions are slow and complicated. The question is how the future of passenger transport on EFE will be in light of those prices and services.
 

The railway is coming back!

Both the persistence of the Incofer president, Mr. Carabaguiaz, and the steadily rising fuel costs have brought the Costa Rica government to repair the state railway lines "at any price" and to bring back freight and passenger transport to the railway wherever possible.

In the spring of 2006 the tourist train on the Pacific railway resumed its operation, however, due to track damage only between San José and Balsas de Atenas. Freight trains occasionally run again to Calderas. On the other side, the Minister of Transportation asked on July 25 for a thorough examination of the track on the section used by the tourist train in order to guarantee the safety of the passengers. On each trip, the train carries 400 passengers!
 
To the government was given the sum of €667’000 by the European Union in order to repair the San José - Heredia - Tibás line. Work started already in 2005, but the damage (on a bridge in particular) and the need to replace rails on several spots exceeded the financial possibilities of Incofer and the government. However, the search for finance continues within the country, and the Ministry of Economy was able to raise almost €1 Million (more than Colonies 650 Million). With this, mainly the Pacific line will be rehabilitated. Encipher itself spent about Colones 20 Million to rebuild a steel bridge in Cinch Esquinas de Tibás, and on June 16 for the first time a locomotive ran over the entire line without derailing! However, the rails are still in hair-raising shape.

But also in freight traffic Incofer president Miguel Carabaguiaz accomplished a lot. On the Pacific line there is a regular train with 15 carloads of soya between Barrancas and Alajuela. On the Atlantic lines freight trains run between Limón and Guápiles and between Siquirres, Limón and Fortuna (Valle de la Estrella). In the first 6 months of 2006 the railway carried 3,7 Million boxes of banana and 61’585 tons of steel which is 10 times more than in the same period of the previous year!

In the first 8 months since the introduction of the regular suburban train between San José and Pavas, 20 collisions have been reported on the numerous level crossings along the line. Incofer does not dispose of the means to install gates or traffic lights. The national press is continuously lecturing the car drivers about the dangers at those level crossings, but success is rather poor. Although the railway does not have to pay for the destroyed car, there are fallible car drivers who exactly ask for this! However, the repairs on the railway vehicles also cost a lot. Now it is demanded from the government to confiscate immediately the driving license of such car drivers, with a new license issued only after 3 years.

At present, Incofer employs 1150 people (in 2001 the number was only 320) and trains are running on 325 km of track, however, on low speed due to bad state. The increasing freight traffic enables Incofer to pay the wages by themselves.

The government intends to improve the infrastructure and to concession both freight and passenger business. Interest in this has been shown by the Czech firm Inekon.

At the beginning of June 2006, at the occasion of the St. Johns Days which are also celebrated in Honduras, for the first time after more then one year without passenger trains, this kind of transportation came back to the country. It was, however, rather a suburban train operating four daily round trips between Campo Agas and downtown San Pedro Sula. When needed, even more trips were run. The fare was Lempiras 5 (about €0,20) and the trains with 4 coaches each were heavily frequented.

The state railway FNH started in May with the repair work on the San Pedro Sula - Puerto Cortés line in order to operate some occasional freight traffic. For this, the railway disposes of Lempiras 200’000. As a second stage, from mid June on all bridges are examined and the worst spots in the track repaired because it is planned to resume passenger traffic between San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortés still in 2006. Fare will be 25% less than a bus ticket for the same relation.

Tela is also envisaged as one more destination, however, this could still take a while because in the past months roads had been paved in the town of Progreso. During those works, the railway tracks in the areas of the numerous level crossings were lifted and not paved as usual! In spite of this, the parliamentarian Norma Calderón proposes to raise more money for the railway in order to repair also this line.
 
 

More than one year ago, hurricane "Stan" raged in Chiapas and long stretches of the railway line Ixtepec - Tapachula were destroyed. More than 60 bridges of all sizes were swept away. The line is the only railway access to Guatemala and has also a strategic importance. It was also one of the few lines with passenger transport. The weekly passenger train - consisting of second-class coaches originally built for suburban traffic, with doors for high level platforms on a line mostly without platforms at all - is crucial for the local people in the numerous small villages to survive. The operator of the line, Compañía del Ferrocarril Chiapas - Mayab CFCM declined rebuilding the line as this will cost at least USD27 Million. But pressure from the Chiapas state, the (few) freight customers and also the army brought the federal government to the decision to carry 90% of the expenses; the remaining 10% are to be raised by CFCM. It still may last more than one year until traffic can be resumed.

With FCCA to Huancayo: hardly ever…

FCCA has lost any credibility. Around June 10, 2006 we received the notice that all weekly trips to Huancayo were cancelled until November 2006. No reasons for this were given. Instead of it, trips for the last weekend of the months June and July 2006 were announced. Both trips took place, but no further publicity had been made. All this put off potential passengers as short term rebooking hardly were possible. As a consequence, the Fahrplancenter stops any publicity for this train until the situation is clear again. FLB and AIFFLA are ready to cooperate as consultants with a new operator of the passenger train; an operational concept has already been elaborated.

In Argentina, the national government issued an international call for bids for the construction of a high speed line Buenos Aires - Rosario - Córdoba. In the pre qualification process, 3 groups including CAF (Spain), Siemens (Germany) and Alstom (France) filed their documentation. The city of Santa Fé asks for being connected to this high speed railway.
 
In Brazil, the Tourist Ministry is investing more and more into tourist or historic railways. After Ramiz Galvão in Rio Grande do Sul, the Trem do Pantanal receives also money from that source. Now, a local initiative from the Minas Gerais state filed for support in order to re-introduce the "Trem Mineiro" on the Barra Mansa - Lavras line. The perspectives to get a grant should be good, it is said.

The state railway UFC of Cuba repaired a 10 km stretch of the southern line Habana - Cienfuegos. This stretch, 214 to 224 km away from Habana, was responsible for delays of almost all trains on this line and derailments increased recently due to the bad state of the track. Repair work has also started on the "Elevados", as the high level line to the main station of Habana is called. This structure suffers from increasing damage and since many years it could only be used at very low speed.

In Mexico the about 100 km long railway line from Chontalpa (between Coatzacoalcos and Campeche) to the port of Dos Bocas near Paraíso on the Caribbean coast in the Tabasco state should finally be built. The property was secured 40 years ago, and about 25 years ago the track bed was established. The port of Dos Bocas is the most important petroleum port of southern Mexico.

The railway of Paraguay is facing an uncertain future. Freight traffic (only in the Encarnación yard) and the tourist train on Sundays from Asunción cover just 60% of their costs. If this cannot be resolved, operations may cease in 2007. On the other side there are endeavours to revive the tramway of Asunción; three ex-Brussels cars are reported to be usable and on some spots the track is being repaired.

The government of Trinidad issued an international call for bids to build an electrical suburban railway out from Port-of-Spain. In the long view, this railway should cross the whole island and revive almost the entire former railway network.

The new schedule of AFE in Uruguay was designed unrealistically so that now almost all trains run delayed, and travel times on the line to Victor Sudriers were changed in a way that during evening peak hardly any reasonable connections exist.
  
 
…and then this:

Ratas y Cucarachas

The "Tren Francés" (French train) of the Cuban state railway UFC between Habana and Santiago de Cuba has a special kind of passengers: the lack of disinfectants and the existence of food leftovers led to the situation that not only over 1'000 people are travelling on each trip of this overnight train, but also rats and cockroaches (these latter ones, however, on free tickets). This became public when an independent journalist had a rather unpleasant encounter with a fellow travelling rat at the end of June 2006 while riding this train. It bit him into his toe, and in order to avoid an infection he had to spend 21 days at a Habana hospital for observation. The rat, however, continued its trip unhindered…

The Fahrplancenter collects such stories from Latin American tracks, and they will be printed in a brochure called "True railway stories from Latin America". Do you have any contribution?