Line A |
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|---|---|
ESTACIÓN PERÚ |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Rapid transit |
| System | Buenos Aires Metro |
| Termini | Plaza de Mayo Carabobo |
| Stations | 16 |
| Daily ridership | 307,188 (2009)[1] 23.8% |
| Operation | |
| Opened | 1913 |
| Operator(s) | Metrovías |
| Character | Underground |
| Technical | |
| Line length | 10.7 km (6.65 mi) |
| Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ½ in) |
| Electrification | Catenary |
Line A is the oldest line of the Buenos Aires Metro. This historic line runs from Plaza de Mayo to Carabobo, and is scheduled to be extended towards San Pedrito station.
Opened to the public on 1 December 1913, becoming the first in South America, the Southern Hemisphere and the entire Spanish-speaking world and Buenos Aires became the thirteenth city in the world to have an underground transport service. It stretches 10.7 km from Plaza de Mayo and Carabobo and runs under all of the Avenida de Mayo and part of the Avenida Rivadavia and is being used by 216,000 people a day. Carabobo station serves as a temporary terminal for the line, as two more stations are under construction that will extend the route of the line to the west. They are Flores and Nazca which once completed will be the definitive end of the line. The line continues to retain its old La Brugeoise cars from Belgium built during the 1910s.
The construction, completely carried out under the open sky, was finished with distinguished details that made it the most secure, comfortable and modern in the world. A smart natural ventilation system, as well as a unique interior visual identity system for each station –to help passenger identification–, stairways built with granite one-block steps, its perfect illumination... it all came together to reflect the splendour of Buenos Aires in those times. The first day of open-public service (December 18, 1913), it carried 220,000 awed passengers.[2] Today Line 1 has become an icon of the city of Buenos Aires and still uses the same cars used at its inauguration. These cars were built by Belgian company La Brugeoise starting in 1913 and were refurbished in 1926 when their wooden structure was modified for underground only use. In 1915 the trains were extended to the intersection of Avenidas Lacarra and Rivadavia, in this section the trains ran at street level until 1926. A peculiarity of the original "pantograph" cars on the "underground tramway" is that they had, until 1926, both low doors at the ends for boarding from the street and high doors in the middle for loading from platforms in the tunnel. For this reason, "Subte" Line A might also be considered one the continent's first "light rail metro".[3]
At present two new stations after Carabobo are under construction: San José de Flores and San Pedrito (formerly Nazca), the new future terminal. Newer metro carriages are slowly being introduced to handle the increased ridership and demand. Line A transports +190,000 passengers per working day
Near the Primera Junta metro station, in the neighbourhood of Caballito, there is a Historical Tramway museum maintained by tram fans that operates on city streets on weekends.
Contents |
In the first decade of the 20th century in Buenos Aires road traffic had sharply increased due to increased population. In 1903 the city had 895,381 inhabitants and there were 4,791 horse-drawn carriages and 60 cars, while 1,457,885 people were living in 1913, with 6,211 carriages and 7,438 automobiles.[4]
Because it was necessary to create new forms of mass transit, Congress awarded in 1909, by Law 6,700, the Ferrocarril del Oeste (FCO) (Buenos Aires Western Railway) to build a two-way underground railway that would join the main route of the Ferrocarril del Oeste, (currently Ferrocarril Domingo Faustino Sarmiento) near Sadi Carnot Street (now Mario Bravo) with the port. But on 28 December of that year the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires gave a concession to the Compañía de Tranvías Anglo-Argentina (CTAA) (Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company), which operated 80% of the tram system-being perhaps the greatest in the world-[5] to build a underground passenger rail service. The project included in its route the Plaza de Mayo-Plaza Miserere section in its stretch which had been granted to the railroad.
| Plaza de Mayo | |
| Perú | |
| Piedras | |
| Lima | |
| Sáenz Peña | |
| Congreso | |
| Pasco | |
| Alberti | |
| Plaza Miserere | |
| Colour of the friezes in 1913 | |
After a dispute, it was agreed that the Western Railway built the line for freight but only one track at a depth that would allow the passage of the passenger line CTAA build on a higher plane. Thus, construction of the Anglo-Argentina Line began on 15 September 1911, with the German company Philipp Holzmann & Cia. as contractor. The construction of this line involved hiring 1,500 workers and used 31 million bricks, 108,000 bars of 170 kg of cement, 13,000 t of iron braces and 90 thousand square metres of insulating layer. The line obtained its current name, Line A, as recently as 17 February 1939.
The Plaza de Mayo-Plaza Miserere subway section was inaugurated on 1 December 1913. On the following day it was opened to the public, carrying 170,000 passengers who enjoyed the first subway in South America. Buenos Aires thus became the thirteenth city to have this service, behind London, Athens, Istanbul, Vienna, Budapest Glasgow, Paris, Boston, Berlin, New York Philadelphia and Hamburg. Each station had a length of 100 metres and had friezes of specific colours for easy identification, taking into account the high level of illiteracy that existed at the time.
The construction of the Plaza Miserere station was performed by the two companies, CTAA and FCO. At that time the station had two tracks for the railroad, who were in the middle, and two pairs of lines for the metro, which were on the laterals. The outside southern track of the subway was eliminated in 1926 and it was decided to extend the platform to make the rail-subway transfer more convenient.
The route was extended to Río de Janeiro Station on 1 April 1914 and on 14 July of that year to the Caballito station renamed in 1923 as Primera Junta Station. Following the Primera Junta Station a ramp was built in the center of Rivadavia Avenue between the Cachimayo and Emilio Mitre streets. This ramp was used to carry trains and move them up at the Polvorín workshop located on the Emilio Mitre and José Bonifacio streets, covering a surface loop shared with streetcar traffic until 1963. This 2 km route is used since 1980 by Asociación Amigos del Tranvía (Association of Friends of the Tram) to run the Tramway Histórico de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires Historical Tramway). The ramp created in 1915, was also used by surface passenger to the intersection of Lacarra and Rivadavia Avenues, a service that was canceled on 31 December 1926.
The investment to build the line was m$n 17 million. m$n 3 million is invested in the excavation of the tunnel, m$n 7 million in the construction, m$n 2.5 million in the initial 50 trains and m$n 2 million for the Polvorín workshop.[4][6][6]
| P. de Mayo - Carabobo |
After 96 years of continuous service, the cars La Brugeoise are near their final withdrawal from service. On 23 December 2008, two new stations were inaugurated on Line A: Puan and Carabobo. The increased demand could be absorbed by the current fleet, with the reinforcement of two trains Fiat Materfer taken from the line D. A total of 95 La Brugeoise cars operate on Line A.
Spare parts for these trains are no longer available in the market so they have to be custom-made by request at Polvorín workshop, where La Brugeoise units and other Buenos Aires metro rolling stock are maintained and repaired by highly skilled and qualified personnel. According to Metrovías, Buenos Aires Metro private operator, every 20 days units undergo a routine check-up, while every four years heavy maintenance is performed. Despite their 96 years of uninterrupted service, La Brugeoise trains have one of the lowest mechanical failure averages in the network: 19 every 100,000 km.[7]
It is hoped that these surviving vintage formations continue operating as a tourist attraction on holidays and Sundays, a development that is becoming popular across the world.[7]
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