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FLB Friends of Latin American Railways 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 Information Organ of the Association Friends of Latin American Railways 14th Year, Number 3 8th April 2010
FLB INTERNALS ITINERARY TO THE MEETING POINT RESTAURANT STERNEN FOR MEETINGS FROM APRIL 2009 ONWARDS How to reach Restaurant Sternen: From Winterthur main station take bus No.3 towards Rosenberg, get off at the bus stop Bachtelstrasse, go across the street crossing and then go down along Bachtelstrasse towards Veltheim town centre, turn left into Löwenstrasse, and the Sternen Restaurant is just across the street from a school building. The Löwenstrasse can be found on the town map under: http://maps.google.ch/maps?hl=de&q=Winterthur,+Schweiz&ie=UTF8&ll=47.506824,8.724539&spn=0.006682,0.019999&z=16 LATIN AMERICA NEWS ARGENTINA One week later the train was stopped by inhabitants of Chorillos and El Alisal, because they were protesting about the lack of help. February 27, 2010 a surface earthquake damaged many houses; the municipality received financial help of ARS800’000, but never transferred the funds to the people who need it. Since state president Lula da Silva is in office railways recorded a new boost. North-South Railway: 1987-2002 only 215 km from Açailândia to Aguiarnópolis have been put in service. After 2003 371 km from Aguiarnópolis to Guaraí in Tocantins state have been completed and another 978,5 km from Guaraí to Anápolis are under construction and will be completed towards the end of 2010. In April 2010 construction of another 669 km from Ouro Verde de Goiás to Estrela d’Oeste was announced, and the long time project now sees the North-South Railway linking Belém on the Amazonas river with the port of Rio Grande in Rio Grande do Sul state. Construction of the West-East Railway from the port of Ilheús over 530 km to the mining site of Caetité will commence this year, with a construction time of 2 years. The line should later be extended by 960 km to Figueirópolis on the North-South railway. Construction of the high speed Railway Rio de Janeiro - São Paulo - Campinas will begin towards end of 2010, probably with Chinese help, and may be completed to the 2016 Olympic games. The number of tourist rail lines reached 22. Some of the suburban railways in the Northeast got financial help to buy new rolling-stock, built by Bom Sinal. Inauguration of the Western section of Metrô de Teresina to Mercado Troca-Troca/Praça da Bandeira brought an immediate doubling of passenger numbers. Rehabilitation of several railway lines, like Campo Grande - Corumbá, Recife - Maceió, Maceió - Propriá and Fortaleza - Iguatú is going ahead. Ferronorte is building every day 690 metres of new railway, finishing over 55 Kilometres within less than a year; by 2012 the line will be extended by 260 Kilometres to Rondonópolis. December 2009 saw the opening of 1,3 Kilometres of new metro line in Rio de Janeiro which are now connecting Lines 1 and 2. CPTM may soon rehabilitate old rolling stock for introduction of regional trains from São Paulo to Santos and from São Paulo to Sorocaba. More lines within São Paulo state will be studied. Metro of São Paulo wants to extend its network from 60 to 240 Kilometres. Brasília will soon receive an Alstom-built light railway line. After the heavy earthquake of Saturday 27th February 2010, a lot more aftershocks until over 7 points followed. About 5 weeks after the main event life is normalising in many places. The railways are under reconstruction. After repairs of the Las Cucharas bridge by EFE traffic resumed normally from end of March on. jBy mid March all Ascensores resumed traffic except Peral and Polanco, which followed some days later. The installations of the ascensors had not been damaged, but access gates, electric supply and windows of some cars have been damaged. TROLLEY BUSSES at Valparaíso March 28 saw reinstatement of through train services from Santiago to San Fernando, at lower speeds than normal; 8 trains run to San Fernando and 11 more are ending/starting at Rancagua. EFE, TERRASUR, Santiago - Talca - Chillán The Santiago - Talca section should be back to traffic during April. Talca - Chillán needs a lot more reconstruction work due to more important damages, which means that reconstruction needs many more weeks or even months. Traffic resumed between San Rosendo, Hualquí and Concepción April 5, using the two diesel trains from Victoria - Temuco. April 9 electric train traffic between Hualquí and Talcahuano will be reinstated, later services to Laja will follow, too. Services to Lomas Coloradas will resume in May only because damages on the bridge over the Bio-Bio river are heavier than expected. CORTO DE LAJA, Talcahuano – Laja See under Biotren. This service has been completely suspended and the two diesel multiple units transferred to Biotren, this against sharp protests of the municipalities of Victoria, Lautaro and Perquenco. Damage on this line will not be repaired in the near future. BUSCARRIL, Talca - Constitución The Ramal (branch line) will have a comeback! EFE ordered the Chilean Army for reconstruction work of the line. During April EFE hopes to reinstate railcar services between Talca and González Bastias. The lower part of the line to Constitución needs more intense repairs, including the Rio Maule bridge. At least two railcars with trailers are in operational conditions. Many houses along the line are destroyed, and the entire region needs a lot of help.
Situation unknown, the homepage of Tren del Vino is no longer available. Some companies, including Deutsche Bank want to invest some money for reconstruction of railway stations and vine farms between San Fernando and Pichilemu.
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