ansoncfit » rail

Railway Stations of Santiago

ansoncfit — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 09:30:48 +0000

: Mapocho Station, now a convention center

: Entrance to Mapocho Station

: Southbound commuter trains at Estación Central

: Estacion Central

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Chilean Railway Museum

ansoncfit — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 03:01:49 +0000

Photos from Chile’s National Railway Museum, in the Quinta Normal park:

: Presidential railcar

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Ferroclub Argentino

ansoncfit — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 02:56:15 +0000

Railways played an important role in Argentina’s economic and political development. The Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz National Railway Museum writes, “The railroad, that magical and alluring world of trains, is one of the most transcendental inventions of humanity. In our country, the first rail line was inaugurated on August 29, 1857, just years after this revolutionary means of transit began to run in Europe.”

Much of Argentina’s early infrastructure and rolling stock was built with foreign investment. When Colonel Perón nationalized the railways in 1948, Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz, who had written “railways constitute the fundamental key of the nation,” claimed that Argentina had finally “bought sovereignty.” The country’s golden age of rail did not last long, though some rolling stock was manufactured domestically from 1957 up until 1982. As the current Railway Infrastructure Administration explains:

In the late 1940s, the railway network reached 43,000 kilometers. Railway schools were started, and steam engines, diesel locomotives, and all types of carriages were manufactured. The trip from Buenos Aires to Rosario was covered in 3.5 hours. But that progress came to a halt after the coup of 1955. Argentine railways entered into a gradual and continual agony: the Larkin Plan during the government of Frondizi; the means of “rationalization” of the civic-military coup of 1976, and especially the railway scrapping undertaken by the neoliberal regime of Carlos Menem. During that administration, under the promise of improving services, the lines were privatized or transfered to the provincial governments.

Much of this history is documented in the National Railway Museum as well as a number of Railway Clubs. Members of these clubs volunteer to restore rolling stock and run charters with restored steam engines. The Colonel Lynch branch I visited is home to 88 coaches and 9 locomotives. I especially enjoyed seeing some of the original Line B subway cars.

: Ferroclub Argentino

: Ferroclub Argentio’s Coronel Lynch branch

: A fellow traveler from Philadelphia

: Baldwin 4-6-0 build in 1908

: One of the 56 first generation cars used on Line B starting in 1930

: One of the original Line B cars – built in Nottingham

: In front of a 1952 Henschel

: Evita’s train car

: Italian, Japanese, and Dutch companies all related through rail projects in Argentina

: English locomotive plates

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Commuter Rail in Buenos Aires

ansoncfit — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 22:04:56 +0000

Greater Buenos Aires relies on one of the most extensive commuter rail networks in the Americas (map here). Four main rail terminals are located in the city: Retiro (San Martín, Mitre, and Belgrano Norte lines), Constitución (Roca line), Once (Sarmiento line), and Lacroze (Urquiza line). Privatization during the early 1990s led to chronic underinvestment in these lines and deteriorating service. The national government is now undertaking a multibillion dollar improvement project, adding rolling stock, constructing grade-separated crossings, and electrifying lines.

: Estacion Once

: Estacion Once

: Estacion Constitucion

: Estacion Retiro, built in 1909

: Retiro

: Retiro

: Linea San Martin train crossing Corrientes

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“First Class Treasures”

ansoncfit — Tue, 24 May 2011 17:59:10 +0000

When I would board Cape Town’s Metrorail, the ticket agents would usually sell me, a white-looking person, a first class ticket. One time, out of curiosity, I asked for a second-class ticket instead. The agent looked at me as if I were crazy and curtly informed me that there are only first and third class tickets. I found the omission of second class nonsensical until I reminded myself that South Africa is one of the world’s most unequal countries (with a Gini coefficient second only to Namibia’s). Given South Africa’s history, its separation of train service into first and third classes, without designating a second class, makes sense.

Cape Town Station embodies this apartheid legacy of inequality and segregation:

The first station developments on the site date back to the mid 1800s when rail began playing an important role in the history of the early settlement at the Cape, the Boer War, the Apartheid Era and the Resistance of 1980′s on. The existing station development dates back to the early 1960s when the Victorian structure on Adderley Street was demolished to make way for a modern building that embodied the policy of apartheid, through the introduction of separate concourses and entrances for people of different population groups… The challenge of the present is to re-interpret the station as a profound symbol of the city and to determine how it will influence what happens at its edges, what effect it will have on the city, what potentials it can realise and what it will represent to the people of Cape Town, South Africa and the rest of the World.

(From PRASA’s Xchange Project).

Most passengers today use the First Class entrances and waiting areas, since the station areas are no longer segregated. The station’s design obscures the Third Class areas, its “back doors,” from passengers using the First Class facilities. To get an insight into these “back doors” that non-whites were forced to use during apartheid, I participated in a tour called “First Class Treasures,” part of Cape Town’s Infecting the City public art festival.

Using spoken word, music, and video, the tour was an “unusual and illuminating journey through the old and new parts of the Cape Town City Station.” Jethro Louw, “the godfather of the spoken word in Cape Town,” provided powerful insights into how the evolution of the railroad and the station heightened social tensions, beginning with South Africa’s first steam locomotives and trains. The tour ended in the Third Class suburban concourse, a neglected hallway with more pigeons than passengers.

It was in the Third Class concourse that I saw a billboard for the Xchange Project, promising investment and renovation for the station. In the project’s Basic Information Document, PRASA outlines four goals:

Reframe the role of Cape Town Station to become a vibrant, operationally efficient and dignified public transport hub at the heart of Cape Town
Re-organise spatial and functional arrangements that facilitate operational efficiencies,

… Read the rest