Córdoba Central Railway

For other uses, see Central Córdoba (disambiguation).

The Córdoba Central Railway (CC) (in Spanish: Ferrocarril Central de Córdoba) was a British-owned railway company, founded in 1887, that operated a 1960 km metre gauge 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 ³⁄₈ in)  railway network in Argentina which extended from Buenos Aires, north west via Rosario and Córdoba, to Tucumán. Financial problems forced the sale of the company to the Argentine government in 1939.

The company was founded in 1887 to take over a concession, originally granted to William Temple in 1885, for the construction of a 206 km line, from the Córdoba city suburb of Alta Córdoba to San Francisco. The line was completed in 1888 and the following year the company took over the state-owned Ferrocarril Central Norte which operated a line from Córdoba to Tucumán, built between 1875 and 1876, a line from Tucumán to Salta, then still under construction and completed later in 1891, and branch lines from Frías to Santiago del Estero, opened in 1884, and from Recreo to Chumbicha, opened in 1886. The condition of this 885 km network, was such that a large capital investment was required to bring it up to a satisfactory standard.

The British-owned Argentine North Western Railway, which operated a line from Tucumán to La Madrid via Río Chico and a number of branch lines in the sugar producing region of Tucumán Province, was bought by the CC in 1899. In 1900 the company took over the operation of the British-owned Córdoba North Western Railway from Córdoba to Cruz del Eje. Three years later the Argentine government granted a concession to the CC to build a line connecting Rosario and Buenos Aires which was opened on 1 May 1912 and in October 1914 a new railway terminus was inaugurated at Retiro in Buenos Aires. In 1912 the CC took over another British-owned company the Córdoba & Rosario Railway with whom it had shared mutual interests for a number of years.

Severe rail and road competition lead to financial problems which eventually resulted in the sale of the CC to the Argentine government in May 1939 after which operation of its lines was taken over by the Argentine State Railway.

References

• Colin M. Lewis, British Railways in Argentina 1857-1914: A Case Study of Foreign Investment, Athlone Press (for the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London), 1983.

• H.R.Stones, British Railways in Argentina 1860-1948, P.E.Waters & Associates, Bromley, Kent, England, 1993.