Ferrobaires S.A. is the commercial name of a public railway company which operates extensive long-distance passenger trains throughout Buenos Aires Province

Buenos Aires Province

The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...

 in Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

. Its official corporate name is Unidad Ejecutora del Plan Ferroviario Provincial (UEPFP), or Executing Unit of the Provincial Railway Plan in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

. The company is primarily owned and funded by the Buenos Aires provincial government. The name "Ferrobaires" is a combination of the Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 words for "Rail Buenos Aires."

From its bases in the city of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

, Ferrobaires rail lines fan out south and west across the surrounding province which bears the same name. The company transports approximately 1.5 million passengers annually and operates in and out of all three major train stations in Buenos Aires city: Retiro, Constitución

Estación Constitución

Constitución railway station is a large railway terminus in Barrio Constitución in central Buenos Aires, Argentina...

, and Once.

All of the routes currently managed by Ferrobaires were previously run by Ferrocarriles Argentinos

Ferrocarriles Argentinos

Ferrocarriles Argentinos was a public company that managed the entire Argentine railway system for nearly 45 years. It was formed in 1948 when all the private railway companies were nationalised during Perón's first presidential term, and transformed into the Empresa de Ferrocarriles del Estado...

, the country's now-defunct national passenger railroad corporation. After the privatisation

Railway Privatisation in Argentina

Following a prolonged period of hyperinflation in the 1980s, accompanied by a steep increase in fiscal deficit and a sharp fall in reserves, the Argentine government, under the presidency of Carlos Menem from 1989, initiated a series of neoliberal reforms which included the privatisation of...

 of Ferrocarriles Argentinos starting in 1992, many train services across Argentina were indefinitely discontinued. However, Ferrobaires has successfully resurrected many of these services within Buenos Aires Province since 2001.

In early 2006, the national Ministry of Planning considered taking control of the company to arrange its reprivatization, but the provincial government of Felipe Solá

Felipe Solá

Felipe Solá is an Argentine politician of the Justicialist Party and was the governor of the province of Buenos Aires until he left office in 2007....

refused this offering, argumenting that the company was working very efficiently and with low prices under provincial state control.

External links

• Official Site of Ferrobaires
• Satélite Ferroviario - contains extensive train schedule information for Argentina, including Ferrobaires timetables