page_title: General Bartolomé Mitre Railway
section_title: Tren de la Costa
hierarchical_section_title: General Bartolomé Mitre Railway / History / Tren de la Costa
caption_attribution_description: English: Parked in Borges
context_page_description: The General Bartolomé Mitre Railway, named after the former Argentine president Bartolomé Mitre, is one of the six state-owned Argentine railway lines formed after President Juan Perón's nationalisation of the railway network in 1948 and one of the largest of Argentina. The six divisions, managed by Ferrocarriles Argentinos were later broken up during the process of railway privatisation beginning in 1991 during Carlos Menem's presidency.
  The FCGBM incorporated the British-owned 5 ft 6 in broad gauge company, Central Argentine Railway, and the northern section of the French-owned broad gauge Rosario and Puerto Belgrano Railway.
  The principal lines departed from Retiro railway terminus in Buenos Aires to the north through the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Santiago del Estero and Tucumán.
  The Ferrocarril Mitre also has a branch that extends from Villa Gobernador Gálvez in Santa Fe Province to Puerto Belgrano, south of the Buenos Aires Province. This branch was part of the Rosario and Puerto Belgrano Railway although it is out of use nowadays.
context_section_description: On September 1990 the project to re-open the Mitre-Delta branch was reactivated. Tren de la Costa S.A., a company of local Sociedad Comercial del Plata, owned by Santiago Soldati, won the tender and began the works to reactivate the branch. The company remodeled the 8 stations of the branch and built 3 new stations, most of them with the concept of shopping mall centers, being San Isidro the most representative of this tendence.
  A new terminus, named "Maipú" was built just in front of former terminus Bartolomé Mitre. Both stations were connected through a pedestrian bridge over Maipú Avenue. Unlike the Retiro-B. Mitre branch, the new Maipú-Delta service was a light rail system, using two-car train sets acquired to Spanish company Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF).
  The service between Maipú-Delta was opened in April 1995.
  The project delayed more than a year until on December 7, 1994, the train made its first trip from Delta-Libertador. Then President of Argentina Carlos Menem attended the celebration. The official opening was on April 20, 1995 when the first train departed from new station Maipú to Delta, launching the passenger service 5 days later.
  During the first years of existence, the branch carried an average of 100,000 passenger (on weekends) due to it had been conceived as a tourist train, with Maipú, Libertador and San Isidro as its main commercial centres. Beside Delta terminus, a new amusement park, "Parque de la Costa" was built, self-proclaiming "the largest in South America". Parque de la Costa -opened in April 1997- invested US$100 million to be constructed. Two years later, the "Trillenium Casino" opened beside the park and Delta station. SCP and Grupo Bolt invested A$ 70 million. The new gamble center had 1,800 slots machines, 76 game table and 2 electronic roulettes.
  Successive economic crashes such as Tequila crisis of Mexico (1994) and Asia financial crisis (1997) caused a decrease of the number of passenger carried by the company, affecting not only the train services but the amusement park as well. The SCP asked the national government a grant to continue operating the trains but the request was denied due to the concession contract did not include the possibility of granting subsidies because Tren de la Costa was categorized as a tourism train unlike the rest of the lines that were a public passenger transport.
  After a progressive decrease of the number of passengers carried and the closure of most of shops in the stations, The Government of Argentina revoked the concession to SCP, taking over the Tren de la Costa through its subsidiary SOFSE.
caption: Train of private company Tren de la Costa.
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