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Friends of Latin American Railroads FLB PR-OFFICE: Samuel Rachdi, Bahnhof, CH-6422 Steinen SZ; Tel. +41/41/832.01.34; Fax +41/41/832.01.35 Email: info@fahrplancenter.com
VOLTA O TREM 10th Year, Number 5 30th October 2006
FLB NEWS NEW MEMBERS The FLB welcomes today two new members: Mrs. Myriam Grell-Batista from Zurich joined us at the meeting of September 2006 and shortly after we could welcome Mr. Kristian Nygaard from Valby in Denmark among us. By this, one more country is included in the "FLB area". The entire FLB is very delighted about these new members and wishes them a lot of pleasure. FLB is organising a study trip in autumn 2007 and the region visited will be southern Brasil. The following railways are on the programme: Campinas - Jaguariúna; tramways in São Paulo, Itatinga and Santos; Campos de Jordão; Serra Verde Express Curitiba - Morretes; Paranapiacaba; Marcelino Ramos - Piratuba; Trem do Vinho; Rio Negrinho - Rio Natal; Tubarão, also the suburban trains of São Paulo and Porto Alegre, funicular Monte Serrat and more. The trips starts on November 02, 2007 and takes 3 weeks. The detailed programme and the price will be fixed shortly; it can already be ordered at info@fahrplancenter.com or info@cometreisen.ch. It will be sent as soon as it is completed. Since more than 6 months the state railway of Chile EFE ceased operation of the long-distance trains from Santiago to Temuco and Concepción. The reasons were damage after flooding and then construction works. In addition, travel times of other trains (Santiago - Chillán in particular) were extended and at the same time the fares increased. There are some vague promises to run again the overnight trains as from mid-December, but if the day trains in these relations will run again is still unknown. In Chile it is feared that those trains soon will be degraded to seasonal trains. Therefore a call to all of you: Write to EFE and urge them that you intend to use those trains as tourists; ask for trips in all possible seasons of the year. You may write e-mails or letters to: contacto@efe.cl (to the attention of one of the persons listed below) or by letter to: Empresa de los Ferrocarriles del Estado EFE Señor Jaime Contreras, Gerente General, (or to Señor Guillermo Díaz Silva, Presidente del Directorio) Avenida Libertador Bernardo O’Higgins 3322 Santiago, Chile Write in English or Spanish and insist on an answer, repeat your request if necessary. (More news on EFE see below) The web site of our co-operative AIFFLA is growing; have a look on www.aiffla.com ! Shares will be available very soon. ARGENTINA IT’S LOGICAL, OR NOT? The train "El Gran Capitán" from Buenos Aires to Posadas is now operated by TEA Trenes Especiales Argentinos, a company which has its origins in the Ferroclub Argentino. This train runs twice weekly with no subsidies or any other help and reaches a break-even. Whatever the reasons may be - the national government called for bids to operate the train. In this call it is stated "the winner has to run one train per week and direction; he will receive the relevant subsidies". Everything clear?! BRAZIL VALE DO CONTESTADO The good news don’t stop coming in! The national administration for land transport ANTT has certified the 373 km long railway line Porto União da Vitoria - Calmon - Caçador - Videira - Herval d’Oeste - Marcelino Ramos for "not regular passenger transport" over the entire line. This means that non-daily rail passenger traffic is possible, for example tourist trains. The line was entirely checked and repaired where necessary and annually a weed extermination is also carried out. ABPF (the Brasilian association for railway preservation) offers for the time being the possibility to charter steam trains over the whole line or partial sections of it. No further details are known at present. CBTU CBTU Recife gave away one diesel locomotive to CBTU Natal in order to increase the number of serviceable engines at a rate of 50%. This enables the Natal system to operate some more trains on its two lines Natal - Parnamirim and Natal - Ceará Mirim. Although there is a railway line from Recife to Natal, the locomotive was brought to Natal by road as the rail track is interrupted north of Paul Cavalcanti (in the State of Paraíba ). Officially, it is still part of the operational freight train network of CFN… A STAGGERING RAILWAY First, one of the top managers of EFE had to be fired because of fraud. Then came the long closure of the line south of Chillán. But also the delayed re-opening of the Valdivia line and many other irregularities quickly brought misfortune over the once exemplary EFE. The budget for the repair work on the Talca - Constitución line was cut to USD800’000 from the original USD1 to 2 Million which will again cause problems when heavy rainfall occurs. The line is open, but with precautions. Victoria - Temuco - Puerto Montt: there is just one through round-trip with railcars (instead of originally 2), additional trips run between Victoria - Temuco - Gorbea and Osorno - Puerto Montt. The promised extension to the end of 2006 of the Biotren line from San Pedro to Coronel has not been realised. Nobody speaks about Concepción - Tomé anymore. EMU’s were moved from Biotren to Metrotren in Santiago; therefore the schedule condensations are not possible. The introduction of regional trains between Temuco and Valdivia has been postponed for at least one year (maybe even more). The repair works on the line from Limache to Calera and Llay Llay have been stopped. VENEZUELA OPENING FRENZY State president Hugo Chávez has a full calendar. On October 15 he inaugurated the suburban train Caracas - Cúa (see picture), and on November 8 he will attend the opening of the Metro de los Teques. This is an overland metro line which connects in the southwest with the urban metro network of Caracas. In mid-December it’s the turn of the Metro Maracaíbo which is rather a modern Light Rail line. Those are all railway projects which were under construction for many years, but they have been completed only under the actual government.
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