Chascomús railway and bus station

Chascomús
Inter-city

Freight train passing the station platforms.
Location Balcarce and González Chávez, Chascomús
Argentina
Coordinates 35°34′45″S 57°58′57″W / 35.5791°S 57.9826°W / -35.5791; -57.9826Coordinates: 35°34′45″S 57°58′57″W / 35.5791°S 57.9826°W / -35.5791; -57.9826
Operated by Ferrobaires (Standard service)
Trenes Argentinos (Express service)
Line(s) Roca
Distance 113 km (70 mi) from Buenos Aires
Bus stands 7
Construction
Platform levels 5
Other information
Fare zone Buenos Aires Province
History
Opened December 19, 2014 (2014-12-19)

Chascomús is a railway station and bus terminus in the homonymous city of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Construction began on his station in 1983 when Raúl Alfonsín was President of Argentina but works were interrupted and finally cancelled until they were resumed in 2014 and the station was finished and opened to public on December 19.

Therefore, Chascomús original station (inaugurated in 1865) fell into disuse and was closed.

History

Station hall.
Location of the new station, at the west from the old one.

Chascomús was one of the main stations of the Constitución - Mar del Plata railway service. The BAGSR (then "Ferrocarril del Sud") operated the line until the Railway nationalization of 1948 when the Argentine state purchased all the British and French-owned railway companies. Since then, Ferrocarriles Argentinos ran all the services to Mar del Plata until 1993 when the Province of Buenos Aires took over the services through its company Ferrobaires and has been running services to date.[1][2]

Nevertheless, the original route to Mar del Plata used tracks that crossed downtown Chascomús, with more than 17 level crossings existing.[3] That also meant trains had to run at very low speed when crossing Chascomús in order to prevent accidents, generating significant delays in the time of journey. To put an end to this, a new building that operated as both railroad and bus terminus, was projected during the Presidency of Raúl Alfonsín. The original project included construction of a new route for the tracks, moving them to a suburban area of the city to prevent accidents. The successive economic crisis in Argentina halted construction, until the station was indefinitely abandoned without being finished.[4]

Almost 20 years later, the project was put into discussion again by the Argentine state, with only two level crossings projected.[5] Finally, four level crossings were allowed to be opened.[6]

Works to move tracks were committed to Spanish company COMSA EMTE in 2013.[6][7] The company built a new line of 20 km length to avoid the big amount of level crossings of the old route.[8][9]

In December 2014, brand new trains acquired by the Government of Argentina from the Chinese company CSR, started to run luxury services from Constitución to Mar del Plata,[10][11] operated by the national state-owned company Trenes Argentinos. Standard service continued to be operated by Ferrobaires.[1]

When the new railway/bus terminus was inaugurated on December 19, 2014, the old station was closed.[12][12][13][14]

See also

References

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