Argentina: Sarmiento line undergrounding

[colinw]

Wow, Argentina is undergrounding an entire 33km long Buenos Aires suburban line in a single project! 

Project cost = 11.5 billion Argentine Pesos = approximately AU$ 2.5 billion

Before anyone says anything, I would suggest that any comparison of costs between this project and Australian projects is likely to be grossly misleading due to the different regulatory environments, OH&S regimes and costs of manpower & materials.

Still, it is interesting that so many places we Australians somewhat smugly dismiss as being third world seem to be racing ahead with projects which would be sneeringly dismissed as mere foaming in our backward looking "Can't Do" country.

Railway Gazette International -> Ceremony marks start of Sarmiento tunnelling

05 July 2012

ARGENTINA: What Minister of the Interior & Transport Florencio Randazzo described as 'the most important railway project of the last 100 years' was officially launched in Buenos Aires on July 2.

Under plans announced in 2006, a 33 km tunnel is to be bored between Moreno and Caballito in order to replace the surface alignment of the Sarmiento commuter route. The minister was on hand as the cutter head for the TBM 'Argentina' was lowered into the launch pit ready to start the first drive from Haedo to Caballito.

Randazzo said the first stage costing 11·5bn pesos would bring many benefits, notably the elimination of level crossings which would 'avoid many accidents and much loss of life'. He added that the new underground alignment would enable the service frequency to be increased to every 3 min, increasing capacity from 100 million to 280 million passenger-journeys a year.

'This is a first world project that will extend to a total of 33 km and 13 stations', said Randazzo. 'It is important to emphasise that we will be taking forward this project without interrupting the existing service on the Sarmiento line'.

[Gazza]

I've never really thought of Argentina as being third world TBH, they do alright...

But sigh, this is the sort of thing they need to do on the Dandenong corridor.

[SurfRail]

^ For about $20bn you might just manage that...

(Obviously plenty of opportunity to defray costs along the way - and some crackpot keeps talking about doing it to the Glen Waverley line)

[colinw]

I wouldn't mind doing it to the Beenleigh line, from just before Banoon to about Fruitgrove or Kuraby, and again through Kingston. Knock some horrible curves out.

Much of Latin America no longer qualifies as 3rd word, and is really getting its act together. I have some friends from Argentina who say the general level of development in their country is equivalent to ca. 1950s USA or Australia, and modernising rapidly.

For the last couple of years, one of the  fastest growing economies in the world has been Chile. My own employer makes a significant portion of its income doing CBTC projects for new Metro lines in South America.

Just as we tend to mimic the UK and USA here, a lot of South America looks to Portugal (for Brazil) & Spain (the rest except Guyana & Suriname) for the lead. The adoption of democratic principles & modern institutions in places like Chile & Argentina is very similar to what happened in Spain in the decades following the death of Franco and the new constitution of 1978.