Ferrobaires
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ferrobaires S.A. is the commercial name of a public railway company which operates extensive long-distance passenger trains throughout Buenos Aires Province in Argentina. Its official corporate name is Unidad Ejecutora del Plan Ferroviario Provincial (UEPFP), or Executing Unit of the Provincial Railway Plan in English. The company is primarily owned and funded by the Buenos Aires provincial government. The name "Ferrobaires" is a combination of the Spanish words for "Rail Buenos Aires."
From its bases in the city of Buenos Aires, Ferrobaires rail lines fan out south and west across the surrounding province which bears the same name. The company transports approximately 1.5 million passengers annually and operates in and out of all three major train stations in Buenos Aires city: Retiro, Constitución, and Once.
All of the routes currently managed by Ferrobaires were previously run by Ferrocarriles Argentinos, the country's now-defunct national passenger railroad corporation. After the privatisation of Ferrocarriles Argentinos starting in 1992, many train services across Argentina were indefinitely discontinued. However, Ferrobaires has successfully resurrected many of these services within Buenos Aires Province since 2001.
In early 2006, the national Ministry of Planning considered taking control of the company to arrange its reprivatization, but the provincial government of Felipe Solá refused this offering, argumenting that the company was working very efficiently and with low prices under provincial state control.
[edit] External links
- Official Site of Ferrobaires (Spanish)
- Satélite Ferroviario - contains extensive train schedule information for Argentina, including Ferrobaires timetables (Spanish)
