RAILWAY STATION, SANTA FÉ
The purchase of the Buenos Aires and Rosario line gave the Central Argentine an entrance into the rich province of Tucuman over a track of the same gauge as its own. After leaving Rosario this line passes through a rich agricultural section as far as Rafaela, and is intersected by several branch lines of the Santa Fé system. Shortly after leaving that place, which itself is only three hundred and fifteen feet above sea level, the country gradually becomes lower and swampy, being about at its lowest on the frontier between the provinces of Santa Fé and Santiago del Estero. After a considerable distance of this low, swampy land the level rises until it is over six hundred feet in elevation, where a branch four miles in length connects the main line with the city of Santiago del Estero, capital of the province of the same name. This city of fifteen thousand has nothing to distinguish it beyond the fact that it is the capital of a province. The line continues to reach higher elevation by easy grades. After crossing the frontier of the province of Tucuman it reaches a most fertile section and at last enters the pretty little city of the same name about which the Argentinian writers grow eloquent.
At Tucuman connection is made with the Central Northern Railway, a national railway of more than twelve hundred miles in length. It starts at Santa Fé and almost parallels the Central Argentine to Tucuman, at no point being distant more than fifty miles. It is a narrow gauge track. Leaving Tucuman it runs in a general northerly direction, but with many twists and turns in order to avoid the more mountainous sections of the districts through which it passes. At Tala the frontier of Salta is crossed at an elevation of two thousand six hundred and seventy feet, and a short distance further the elevation has increased to over three thousand feet. It then descends to the little town of Rosario de la Frontera noted for its thermal springs. At Guenas, one hundred and eighty miles from Tucuman, a branch runs to Salta, the capital of the province. This is a neat, well-paved city of about thirty thousand people with the usual public buildings and churches of a provincial capital. San Francisco church has a tower over two hundred feet in height which is pointed to with pride by the inhabitants. This city is very old, having been founded as early as 1582 under the name of New Seville. Pampa Blanca (the white pampa), is the first station in the province of Jujuy. Near here another branch is headed for the rather important town of Oran, but the main line soon reaches the capital. Jujuy for a long time was the northerly terminus of the Argentine railway system. This is the highest town in the republic, and, although near the tropics, the altitude gives this little city a fine and healthful climate. It has a population of ten thousand and is distant from Buenos Aires one thousand miles. The town has nothing to distinguish it, but the surrounding scenery is very beautiful. Hill and valley, wood and plain all contribute to make up a most enchanting landscape. The Rio Grande River runs through the town. It is the general bathing place as well as furnishing the power for the electric light and some mills located there. There are many thermal springs in the vicinity which are said to have splendid medicinal properties. The most noted are those of Los Reyes, the kings. There are four springs, one above another, the water being at a temperature of one hundred and twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit.
The Central Northern has recently been extended to La Quiaca, on the Bolivian frontier, where it will meet the railways of that republic when they are extended. At present the Bolivian lines reach Tupiza, and it is about a three days’ journey by coach or mule between the two points. The distance still to be covered is not very great and completion is promised in about one year from this writing. There will then be a continuous railway connection between La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, and Buenos Aires. Peru is promising a road from Cuzco to Lima, and there will then be continuous connection with the Peruvian capital, except on Lake Titicaca over which there is regular steamship service.
The national government also owns a line of railway running from Cordoba northwest through the mountainous provinces of Rioja and Catamarca, more than five hundred miles in length. These lines are known as the Argentino del Norte (Northern), and there is another which is being pushed up into the Gran Chaco. The government has pursued the beneficent policy of running its lines through the districts where private enterprise was afraid to venture because of the uncertainty of the investment. They are contributing greatly to the development of those regions.
The Central Cordoba Railway is quite an important system. One line runs to San Francisco, where it connects with the Cordoba and Rosario Railway which runs to Rosario. Its principal track, however, is a narrow gauge line which runs from Cordoba in a northerly direction to Tucuman, and, with its several branches, serves an extensive territory. A goodly part of the territory traversed is forest land, but a part of it is a salty waste. An independent entrance to Buenos Aires is now being constructed. The lines known as the Provincia de Santa Fé start at Rosario and run north, following the basin of the Paraná River as far as Resistencia, a town opposite to Corrientes, touching at Santa Fé and nearly all the important places in that district. They were built by French capital and now have more than a thousand miles of track. The company is gradually extending its railhead up into the Gran Chaco, and will probably eventually reach Asuncion. They are now only a neck behind the lines on the opposite side of the river and are far ahead from a financial point of view. They have always paid handsome dividends from the quebracho wood, which they bring down from the Chaco. It would not be surprising if this line would eventually be pushed clear up into the state of Matto-Grosso, Brazil, for development is looking up that way.
The district between the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers is served by two railway systems, the Entre Rios and Northeastern systems. These two systems were formerly isolated and had a stormy career for many years. At the present time they work under a traffic exchange agreement and their financial standing is now good. These are the only railroads in the republic, with one exception, of standard gauge, 4 feet 8½ inches width between the rails. The first mentioned road serves the province of the same name. It was originally a line that ran from nowhere to nowhere. The road was built through loans contributed by the government of the province of Entre Rios in 1885, and was completed three years later. The money was squandered so recklessly that it cost twice as much as was necessary, and was built of such poor material that it had to be rebuilt within a few years. The government soon found itself unable to meet its obligations and the road was turned over to the bondholders. It was not placed on a profitable basis until the branches were completed which connected it with important points in the two provinces through which it now runs. The main line of the Entre Rios Railway cuts across this province from Paraná to Uruguay. One branch runs down to a point near Buenos Aires, and freight cars are now ferried across to that city. This is the only car ferry in operation in South America, and it is quite a novelty in that part of the world. Another branch runs to Concordia where connection is made with the Northeastern system. This road has one fork which leads up to and another which follows the Uruguay River. It was built there to carry the traffic around the rapids of that river where navigation was impossible. It will, however, soon be a much more important line, for it is gradually approaching Posadas, the commercial capital of the upper Paraná, and the most important town on the river north of Rosario. The Paraguay Central is also approaching Villa Encarnacion, on the opposite side of the Paraná, and within a short time there will be continuous communication by rail between Asuncion and Buenos Aires, with the exception of ferrying across two rivers.
South of the transcontinental line there are only two railway companies now operating. The Western Railway, or, as it is officially called, the Ferro Carril de Oeste, serves the southwestern part of the province of Buenos Aires and La Pampa. It reaches one of the richest agricultural districts of the republic and a section that is rapidly developing. The various extensions are being pushed out a few miles each year, and this company now owns fourteen hundred miles of track. The Western Railway has had a checkered career. In point of age it is the oldest line in the country, as about fifteen miles of track were built a half century ago. When this little railroad was inaugurated a great celebration was held, and the President delivered an address full of optimism and prophetic of future development. Fortune, however, refused to smile on the project, and money was scarce, so that the national government was obliged to take over the road. It was not a success until an English company took it over in 1890, and began pushing out the extensions over the pampas that are now bringing in the revenue-producing freight, which has placed the Western Railway on the road to prosperity.
The Ferro Carril del Sud, or Great Southern Railway, is the second largest railroad system in Argentina,[1] and one of the best freight producers. It has a monopoly of the greater part of the rich province of Buenos Aires, and its main station at Plaza Constitucion in the city of Buenos Aires is a busy place, with trains continually running in and out loaded with passengers for the suburbs or more distant points. It was due to the enterprise of this company that the busy port of Bahia Blanca was opened, and the seaside resort of Mar del Plata made popular. The section traversed by the Great Southern is threaded here and there by the many branches and feeders of this system, and more are being built each year. Passenger and freight traffic have increased so rapidly that the earnings per mile have almost doubled in the last ten years. It has built a strategic line several hundred miles long to Neuquen, almost directly west of Bahia Blanca, which will eventually become a transcontinental line. Engineers are now at work selecting the most feasible route across the Andes to connect with the Chilean state railways. This plan has already been approved by the directors and work will no doubt be begun before long.