Puente Alsina railway station

Puente Alsina is an Argentine former railway station in the Greater Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Valentín Alsina in the Lanús partido of Buenos Aires Province. The station took its name from the nearby bridge of Puente Alsina over the Riachuelo River. On the other side of this bridge lies the neighbourhood of Nueva Pompeya within the city of Buenos Aires. The station has remained inactive since August 2017 following the closure of the entire Puente Alsina–Aldo Bonzi line due to a derailment.

1. History

Built by the British-owned Buenos Aires Midland Railway, the station was opened in 1908 as the terminus for their metre gauge line to Carhué, in the southwest of the province. The original plan was to boost the importance of the line by extending it from Puente Alsina into the centre of the nearby city. However, the fact that the company held a concession from the province, meant that it was unable to enter the Federal Capital. When the entire Argentine railway network was nationalized in 1948, during Juan Peron's presidency, the BAMR became part of the state-owned company Ferrocarril Belgrano. As part of the privatization of the whole Argentine railway network in the early 1990s, private company Metropolitano was granted a concession to operate the service, part of the Linea Belgrano Sur, as far as General Belgrano, from 1 May 1994. In spite of the large state subsidies received by the company, a serious decline in the standard of its services led to the concession being revoked on 22 May 2007, after which the line was run by UGOFE, a consortium formed by private companies Ferrovías, Metrovías and Trenes de Buenos Aires. In March 2015 the station started to be operated by state-owned Trenes Argentinos, after the Government rescinded the contract with private company Argentren signed one year before. Nevertheless, after two years of service under Trenes Argentinos, in August 2017 the Government closed the entire Puente Alsina - Aldo Bonzi line due to a derailment. Since then, there have not been plans for the reactivation of services in the line.

1. Historic operators

Notes

1. Bibliography

British Railways in Argentina 1857-1914: A Case Study of Foreign Investment by Colin M. Lewis, Athlone Press (University of London), 1983 British Railways in Argentina 1860-1948 by H.R. Stones - P.E. Waters & Associates, Bromley, Kent, England, 1993

1. References

Nearby Places View Menu

Puente Valentín Alsina

The Puente Alsina, formerly known as the Puente Uriburu, is a neo-colonial bridge inaugurated in 1938, that joins the neighbourhood of Nueva Pompeya in the Argentine capital (Buenos Aires) with the city of Valentín Alsina (District of Lanús, Gran Buenos Aires), crossing over the Riachuelo.

Bridge Landmark

Valentín Alsina, Buenos Aires

Valentín Alsina is a city in the Lanús Partido of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is located next to Buenos Aires city in the Gran Buenos Aires urban area.

Neighbourhood

Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata

The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata or Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires (Spanish: Virreinato del Río de la Plata or Virreinato de Buenos Aires or Spanish: Virreinato de las Provincias del Río de la Plata) meaning "River of the Silver", also called the "Viceroyalty of River Plate" in some scholarly writings, in southern South America, was the last to be organised and also the shortest-lived viceroyalty of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. The name "Provincias del Río de la Plata" was formally adopted in 1810 during the Cortes of Cádiz to designate the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. The Viceroyalty was established in 1776 from several former Viceroyalty of Perú dependencies that mainly extended over the Río de la Plata Basin, roughly the present-day territories of Argentina, northern Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay, extending inland from the Atlantic Coast. The colony of Spanish Guinea (present-day Equatorial Guinea) also depended administratively on the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires, located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata estuary flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, opposite the Portuguese outpost of Colonia del Sacramento, was chosen as the capital. Usually considered one of the late Bourbon Reforms, the organization of this viceroyalty was motivated on both commercial grounds (Buenos Aires was by then a major spot for illegal trade), as well as on security concerns brought about by the growing interest of competing foreign powers in the area. The Spanish Crown wanted to protect its territory against Great Britain and the Kingdom of Portugal. But these Enlightenment reforms proved counterproductive, or perhaps too late, to quell the colonies' demands. The entire history of this Viceroyalty was marked by growing domestic unrest and political instability. Between 1780 and 1782, the Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II inspired a violent Aymara-led revolt across the Upper Peru highlands, demonstrating the great resentment against colonial authorities by both the mestizo and indigenous populations. Twenty-five years later, the Criollos, native-born people of Spanish descent, successfully defended against two successive British attempts to seize control of Buenos Aires and Montevideo. This enhanced their sense of autonomy and power at a time when Spanish troops were unable to help. In 1809, the Criollo elite revolted against colonial authorities at La Paz and Chuquisaca, establishing revolutionary governments or juntas. Although short-lived, retroversion of the sovereignty to the people provided a theoretical basis for the legitimacy of the locally based governments (temporarily in the absence of a legitimate king in Spain). These events proved decisive at the 1810 May Revolution events deposing Viceroy Cisneros at Buenos Aires. The name "Provincias del Río de la Plata" was formally adopted in 1810 during the Cortes of Cádiz to designate the Viceroyalty based on popular sovereignty. The revolution in Buenos Aires spread across the Spanish Provincias del Río de la Plata, against the resistance of Paraguay (which declared itself an independent nation in 1811) and the Upper Peru (which remained controlled by royalist troops from Lima, and was eventually re-incorporated into the Viceroyalty of Peru). Meanwhile, the Governor of Montevideo Francisco Javier de Elío, appointed as a new Viceroy by the Spanish Government in 1811, declared the Buenos Aires Junta seditious. However, after being defeated at Las Piedras, he retained control only of Colonia del Sacramento and Montevideo. He departed by ship to Spain on 18 November and resigned in January 1812. In 1814, the revolutionary patriots entered Montevideo, following a two-year-long siege. The Viceroyalty was disestablished in 1825 as Spanish political entity with the fall of Upper Peru and the death of the last Viceroy Pedro Antonio Olañeta.

Government Historic Site

United Provinces of the Río de la Plata

The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (Spanish: Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata), earlier known as the United Provinces of South America (Spanish: Provincias Unidas de Sudamérica), was a name adopted in 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán for the region of South America that declared independence in 1816, with the Sovereign Congress taking place in 1813, during the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1818) that began with the May Revolution in May of 1810. It originally comprised rebellious territories of the former Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata dependencies and had Buenos Aires as its capital. The name Provincias del Río de la Plata (formally adopted during the Cortes of Cádiz to designate the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata) alludes to the Junta Provisional Gubernativa de las Provincias del Río de la Plata or Primera Junta. It is best known in Argentinean literature as Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata ('United Provinces of the River Plate' i.e. 'river of silver'), this being the most common name (since 1811) in use for the country until the enactment of the 1826 Constitution. The Argentine National Anthem refers to the state as "the United Provinces of the South". The Constitution of Argentina recognises Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata as one of the official names of the country, referred to as "Argentine Nation" (Nación Argentina) in modern legislation.

Government Landmark