page_title: Buenos Aires Underground rolling stock
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Buenos Aires Underground rolling stock / History
caption_attribution_description: Español: Interior de un coche Metropolitan Cammell de la línea B de la red de subterráneos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, entonces Subterráneo Lacroze.
context_page_description: The Buenos Aires Underground has one of the most diverse metro fleets in the world, and has had some of the oldest models in operation on any network. The network began with a relatively standardised fleet, but throughout its over 100-year-long history, it has seen numerous purchases which have created cases where some lines operate numerous models. Recently there have been increased efforts to modernise and standardise the fleets, with large purchases from China CNR Corporation and Alstom.
context_section_description: Before the nationalisation of the railways and the formation of Subterráneos de Buenos Aires, the original lines of Buenos Aires Underground were built by three private companies, and each bought different rolling stock for their lines.
  Line A was inaugurated in 1913 by the Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company (AATC)—then owned by the Belgian company Sofina—who owned the vast majority of the city's tramways at that point. Two companies competed to provide the rolling stock of the line: the Belgian La Brugeoise et Nivelles and British United Electric Car Company, with the Belgian company ultimately winning the contract. However 4 UEC Preston cars had been sent to the country and these more extravagant cars were kept in service on the line until the 1970s and were often used on special occasions. The Brugeoise cars made up the entirety of the rolling stock of the line until 2013, retiring just before their 100-year anniversary.
  The Argentine company Lacroze Hermanos built Line B, originally designed to be an underground continuation of the Buenos Aires Central Tramway (today the Urquiza Line). The line has historically been significantly different from the others in terms of rolling stock since it uses third rail electrification instead of overhead lines and as such, it has been the most troublesome to standardise and has often had the most diverse rolling stock, with four different models circulating on its tracks at one point. Originally served by Metropolitan-Cammell cars from its opening in 1930, these were later reinforced by cars from the Osgood Bradley Car Company in the 1950s. Later on, two attempts were made by the state-owned Fabricaciones Militares to replace the rolling stock of the line, however these were never produced in enough numbers to replace all the cars on the line. It was only in 1996 that the line was standardised again when cars were bought second-hand from the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line in order to replace all the cars. This was also the first time in the history of the network that cars were bought second-hand.
  Lines C, D and E were all built by the Hispanic-Argentine Company for Public Works and Finances (CHADOPyF) in the 1930s and 1940s and were thus the most straightforward. All the lines used German Siemens-Schuckert Orenstein & Koppel rolling stock from their inaugurations, though during the 1960s Spanish-built CAF-General Electrica Española were added to the lines. The CAF-GEE cars were designed to be highly compatible with the Siemens-Schuckert Orenstein & Koppel cars in order to reduce maintenance costs. It was only in the 1980s that the rolling stock started to diversify on these lines when Fiat-Materfer cars began to be introduced in order to standardise all the lines of the network (with the exception of Line B) using this rolling stock, however not enough of these were built to replace the Brugeoise, CAF and Siemens cars, so the ended up being spread thinly and switched between lines as temporary stock since their introduction.
  The standardisation across lines was further reduced following privatisation in the 1990s when more attempts were made to replace the ageing Brugeoise and Siemens stocks with second hand purchases from Japan and the incorporation of the new Alstom Metropolis 100 Series rolling stock, none of which were purchased in enough numbers to make up the entirety of a line, let alone multiple lines on the network. Only in 2010s have there been moves towards re-standardising and modernising the fleet whilst retiring the ageing trains which had served since the opening of each respective line. Numerous purchases of new rolling stock have been made, along with the purchase of second hand rolling stock which the City Government claims is a necessity given the need to quickly incorporate trains in lines with rolling stock deficits.
caption: Interior of a Metropolitan-Cammell car on Line B.
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