The rolling-stock is also the object of incessant improvements. To give only one example, the Southern Railways Company has placed in service a new type of locomotive, with two pairs of double-expansion cylinders. These engines have ten wheels, of which six are coupled and four mounted in the front on bogies; their maximum power enables them to draw an effective load of 2160 tons up an incline of 1 in 500. As for the goods wagons, their capacity is 40 tons in the broad-gauge lines and 25 tons on the narrow gauge.
According to statistics, on the 1st November 1908, the various railways had in service 2992 locomotives, 2031 passenger-cars, and 33,800 goods wagons or trucks.
The companies are enabled to import free of tariff, during the first ten and sometimes the first twenty years of their tariff, all their fixed and rolling stock; it is thus to their advantage to obtain from abroad the most effective equipment, in order to obtain the greatest possible profit from the governmental favour.
The table given below contains various data as to the various concessions; it gives the gauge of the lines, their mileage, and the profits of the principal companies.
Railways and Steam Tramways of the Argentine Republic
on the 1st of January 1909.
Railways in Operation.
(Length includes branch lines but not auxiliary lines or loop lines.)
I. State Railways.
| Gauge. | Mileage. | Interest on Capital. | |
| Andean | 1·676 metres (5 ft. 6 in.) | 299 | 5·42% |
| Central North | ” | 1066 | ·80 |
| Northern Argentine | ” | 470 | ·46 |
| —— | |||
| 1835 |