Argentina’s president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has signed a decree renationalising the country’s rail network, reviving state-owned rail company Ferrocarriles Argentinos (FA).
During a ceremony at Retiro station in Buenos Aires, Minister of Interior and Transportation Florencio Randazzo said the government was “repairing a debt of more than half a century”.
Fernández de Kirchner said the recovery of the country’s passenger and freight rail network was a matter of “national public interest”.
The country’s Senate passed a bill to return the railways to state control in April by 53 votes to two.
FA was first formed in 1948 and then dismantled in the early 1990s. A gradual nationalisation of the country’s rail network began again in 2008 with the creation of the Trenes Argentinos Operadora Ferroviaria, which took over commuter services in Buenos Aires, and became a key issue following the 2012 Buenos Aires rail disaster in which 51 passengers lost their lives.
Between 2014 and 2016, Argentina is investing in 3,700 kilometres of new passenger railway.
