The Amazing Argentine: A New Land of Enterprise

by John Foster Fraser

I have heard Buenos Aires and Rosario described as the London and Liverpool of Argentina—and the illustration is apt. Rosario, to be pictured in a later chapter, is a business and shipping centre, and between the two towns there is a constant rush by commercial men. It is inspiriting to see the rush at the Retiro station in the early morning, when men are busy getting their newspapers at the stalls and hastening to the breakfast car and the roomy coaches. To the eye of the newly arrived stranger there are innumerable little differences from things he is accustomed to at home. But they are matters of detail to which you speedily get used, so that after a week or two, or even a few days, you have a little start in the realisation that you are not travelling in a London and North-Western express, but amongst a similar crowd of business men, in a far part of the world, who are intent on their own affairs.

Twelve passenger trains journey daily between Buenos Aires and Rosario. Until Mr. Pearson came along with fresh ideas most of the passenger traffic was by night. Trains left both places at ten o'clock; the passengers went to bed, and early next morning the destination was reached. Now there are two day express trains completing the journey in just under five hours. Only first-class passengers travel by these trains, as excellent as the expresses between New York and Philadelphia. There is nothing in the way of scenery to move one to rapture; but there is good agricultural progress on either side. The line is being double tracked and stone ballasted, and the running is comfortable. And sitting in this train, thronged with business men, whilst the great engine tears along to keep to scheduled time, you understand something of the spirit of modern Argentina.

Amongst the cities of the world Buenos Aires takes thirteenth place in size. With its population of a million and a half, long-distance electric tramcars and the institution of an "underground" system are not enough. High rents are driving many thousands to the suburbs, and when, in the morning, the rush of trains begins to deliver throngs of men and women into the heart of "B.A.," the scene is animated. All the big companies running out of "B.A." are nursing their valuable suburban traffic. The Central Argentine is electrifying over forty-four miles of double track in the neighbourhood of the city. This company, in the suburban section of its system, now carries 15,000,000 passengers a year. All the trains of the company run 889,000 miles a month. A handsome new station is being erected on the site of the old Retiro. I was able to inspect the latest pneumatic system of signalling. When at Rosario I went over the extensive workshops, and although it would be idle even to suggest they compared with Crewe, Swindon, or Doncaster, considering most of the parts are imported, they are comprehensive works, and the machinery of the best.

Since Mr. Pearson has been in charge the Central Argentine has taken to running excursions, and encouraging the holiday makers in the flat lands to go and seek bracing air in the Cordoba mountains. Alta Gracia—of which more anon—an old Spanish town which has been drowsing in the sun for several centuries, is now one of the most popular of holiday haunts.

But, though naturally enough the average passenger considers a railway line from the way it ministers to his needs, it is the goods traffic which is of first importance to railways in a country like Argentina. I went on the Central Argentine line as far north as Tucuman, and as far west as Cordoba and Rio Cuarto, and beheld the richness of the plains. There were endless miles of wheat and maize and linseed; there were the great herds of cattle and sheep. I witnessed the sugar cane harvest in the north in full swing.

All the goods are not brought into "B.A." The line runs to three up-river ports, Rosario, Villa Constitucion and Campana, where there are wide wharves and grain elevators. A goods tonnage of nearly 7,000,000 a year and receipts of nearly £3,500,000 a year spell big business. Yet one found this was only the beginning of things. Already there are gigantic schemes in project for irrigation works in those stretches which are incapable of use because of the insufficient rainfall. The Argentine Government is giving serious attention to this matter. But the railway companies in the Republic are not content to twiddle their thumbs and keep asking, "Why does not the Government do something?" All of them are attending to irrigation themselves, or are doing the work for the Government. The Central Argentine, on behalf of the Government, have an irrigation scheme on hand which will cost close upon £600,000. New lines and extensions up to a further 1,600 miles are projected to cost £8,000,000. Over 35,000 employees are on this line. The length of rolling stock is 143 miles, including 600 passenger coaches and 2,200 beds. Twenty million passengers are carried a year, and the total receipts work out at £40 a week per mile.

The second big railway which attracted my admiration was the Buenos Aires and Pacific, which strikes westward across the continent. The company was formed as recently as 1882, but it has a present capital of over £50,500,000. It owns 1,406 miles, it leases 2,011 miles, and so operates 3,417 miles. Some 150 miles are under construction. It has over 16,000,000 passengers annually, and over 6,000,000 tons of freight; and its gross earnings in the last financial year (July 1912 to June 1913) were £5,590,613. During the last ten years it has absorbed a number of lesser lines—the Villa Maria Rufino, the Bahia Blanca and North-Western, the Great Western, and, lastly, the Argentine Transandine. It has also bought a length of over 200 miles of Government line out in the west. The "B.A. and Pacific" has several subsidiary undertakings. In conjunction with the Great Southern Railway it has a well-equipped light and power company. In my chapter on Bahia Blanca I shall deal with the port accommodation provided by the Pacific Company to dispatch the grain produced within its area to Europe. Perhaps the most important improvement made by the company has been the high level independent access to the city of Buenos Aires. This line, which is five miles in length, consists of two viaducts of brickwork, containing 116 arches of 42.3 feet span each, and 19 steel bridges, the largest being 178.8 feet. From the River Plate an area of 366 acres is being reclaimed to be used for goods sidings and access to the docks. For the conveyance of coal, and materials for use on the line, the company owns its own fleet of steamers. It would be easy enough to give a bunch of figures to show how the passenger traffic has grown; anyway, its suburban service bears comparison with that of any other line entering the capital.

The Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway is becoming increasingly popular, for people desiring to see the world now travel from "B.A." across the pampas, over the Andes, and so down to Valparaiso in Chili, where steamers can be obtained to take them up to Peru, Panama, and San Francisco. Leaving "B.A.," the train runs for some twelve hours across an extensive plain which is far from indicating to the traveller the great mountain ranges which will surprise him later on. Across this plain the lines of the railway extend in an absolutely straight line from Vedia to Makenna, a distance of 175 miles, which is the world's record. Near the first-mentioned station the railway curves in the form of an S; without this, the stretch on the straight would have been 206 miles long.