Budget cut: Train to Pinamar terminated

[antipodean]

1) Greater fuel efficiency means less pollution.
2) Less congestion on the roads improves safety, and traffic flow, and reduces wear and tear (thus maintenance costs on the roads and bridges).
3) The track itself already existed, so construction costs are irrelevant.
4) The train provides connections to towns that are not on the highway.
5) The simple fact of maintaining a healthy rail system is always an advantage to any nation.
6) The rail link provides an alternative route of travel if something goes wrong on the highway, or the bus service suddenly goes belly up, or any one of a dozen other wildly unpredictable things happens, which is always a possibility in Argentina.

And beyond that I will repeat, a government has a responsibility to provide and maintain public transportation

All these points are fantastic, so why weren't more people using the trains while they were running if they cared about these points as much as we do? They chose to take the bus. (Point 2 - the track still needs to be replaced every 20 years, a 25 year old track can't be used safely according to the internet, which means provisioning for future investment and amortizing past investment still represents a cost - also replacing or fixing sections of it that need it every so often)

I'll share the sentiment that the government has a responsibility to ensure transport links exist (or at least in an ideal Argentina I would like one that assumes such a responsibility) or ideally go one step further and actually deliver it where not viable as a private business, providing all residents receiving an income (be it from foreign pensions or a humble job) paid their fair share of income and wealth taxes as they would in Europe or any civilised country with a good train network thus giving the government the money to spend on assuming that responsibility. Sadly, the money fairy doesn't exist and too many people choose not to contribute to the Argentine government through voluntary payment of income and wealth taxes (including some that despite their lack of contribution, voice a lot of political opinion on how other Argentine's tax payers money ought be spent).

Again, I reiterate, the transport links in question still exist just in a different form so let's not invent a discussion on this government abandoning people by cutting this train just to have a moan or because we want to ride a choo-choo train.

 

[on the brink]

Rt. 62 connects Guido and Pinamar. No sense in maintaining an expensive, local train to serve towns already connected by road.

@sergio. I fail to see the logic in your comment:

" As for supporting a train that you don't use, do you propose eliminating state primary and secondary schools for people who don't have children?"

 

[Redpossum]

I did a little more searching around and found this video.

The video was posted three months ago. The second comment from the top, by @fmartello, says that the ticket for the train costs less than half the cost of a micro. Contrast that with the costs quoted by Antipodean above. Same comment also complains that the train has no air conditioning

The first comment, by @serafinrodriguezalonso7909 (whew!) says -
It is a Fiat series 593 vehicle. They come from Spain. They began serving in 1982

The whole video shows you a very old train on a very marginally maintained line. When you can see the tracks, the ties or sleepers are covered in soil. At one point you see a completely unsignaled crossing with actual flagmen standing in the road to stop traffic.

All of this says to me that maintenance and development has been minimal, and I'd find it very hard to believe that costs are actually that high. It's a low budget operation from the get go, but it obviously provides many jobs, which is always worth something.

 

[sergio]

I know this operation very well having used it many times. Some years ago there was a train destined for Mar del Plata and Pinamar. At General Guido they split the train. Some coaches were uncoupled and sent to Pinamar. This was obviously a cost saving measure. The service was dropped for a while but when it was revived it was changed whereby passengers had to make a change at Guido to an ex RENFE Spanish self propelled rail diesel operation. The train from BsAs then went on to Mar del Plata. I'd guess that the ex RENFE equipment used to Pinamar was from the 1970s. It was a very basic operation. No refurbishing had been done. Nevertheless, it never failed to get me to Pinamar, albeit slowly. The Mar del Plata train was comprised of Chinese made equipment purchasd by Macri's goverfnment. It had AC. I don't believe the RENFE train did. I never used it in summer but I imagine it did not however windows opened. In my experience there were more passengers travelling to Pinamar than to Mar del Plata (consider that in addition to Pinamar there are numerous seaside towns like Carilo and Villa Gesel nearby).
A decade or so ago, long before the current operation, I travelled to Pinamar in the summer when there were direct trains. I was astonished at the amount of activity at Constitucion Station. The trains to the coast were very long. They were pressing every piece of available equipment into service. Some passengers had to sit or stand in the vestibule. There is definitely a demand for passenger train service in Argentina but it requires state support to function. This is the case in countries in Europe and even the USA where intecity trains are run by a government run agency called AMTRAK.

 

[perry]

Where did you see the part about only twice a week?

If you look here, there are various and contradictory clues. First it says it runs more frequently in Summer. Then below that it says one trip per day. Below that it says only Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.

Hard to figure out.

As far as number of passengers, it says at the top of that text that the service is used by "thousands of persons", which isn't exactly helpful.

Just as a parting note, I'd point out that rail, as a very general rule of thumb, is 16x more fuel efficient than trucks and buses.


Fares run anywhere from 17K to 28K pesos, according to the website at the link above, so it's not what I'd call heavily subsidized.

And I vehemently disagree that it's the responsibility of the passengers. Providing and maintaining public transportation is entirely the responsibility of government. Do I really need to list the many advantages?

1) Greater fuel efficiency means less pollution.
2) Less congestion on the roads improves safety, and traffic flow, and reduces wear and tear (thus maintenance costs on the roads and bridges).
3) The track itself already existed, so construction costs are irrelevant.
4) The train provides connections to towns that are not on the highway.
5) The simple fact of maintaining a healthy rail system is always an advantage to any nation.
6) The rail link provides an alternative route of travel if something goes wrong on the highway, or the bus service suddenly goes belly up, or any one of a dozen other wildly unpredictable things happens, which is always a possibility in Argentina.

And beyond that I will repeat, a government has a responsibility to provide and maintain public transportation

great posts redpossum fully agree with You . these same people have no problems in having the government increase the security budget up to three times and pay for 20 overseas trips with taxpayers monies but a very vital train service that is is insignificant in costs must be discontinued.

 

[Redpossum]

great posts redpossum fully agree with You . these same people have no problems in having the government increase the security budget up to three times and pay for 20 overseas trips with taxpayers monies but a very vital train service that is is insignificant in costs must be discontinued.

Why, thank you, Perry. Your kind words are appreciated.

It's just infuriating when government uses this "austerity" excuse to do such stupidly shortsighted things.

 

[sergio]

great posts redpossum fully agree with You . these same people have no problems in having the government increase the security budget up to three times and pay for 20 overseas trips with taxpayers monies but a very vital train service that is is insignificant in costs must be discontinued.

I think they mean one train each way on days that it runs which prior to termination was 3 x a week. This time last year it was daily. In peak season they probably added service. Now nothing.