Annals of the dead (7) ....cemeteries in Buenos Aires

The most famous cemetery in Buenos Aires is the one of La Recoleta. This cemetery in the rich neighborhood of Recoleta was found in 1722 using the gardens of a disbanded convent.

The cemetery contains 4691 vaults. 94 were declared national monuments. Burried here are Evita Peron, several argentine presidents or dictators like Mitre, Sarmiento and Roca, Nobel prize winners like Leloir (chemistry), generals, artists and actors.

Like the neighborhood around it, it is a popular tourist destination, in particular the otherwise unspectecular grave of Eva Peron in a side alley which is too narrow for the number of her admirers.

The graves of these celebrities are well maintained while some of the other vaults have fallen into disrepair. Probably people cannot afford the price of many ten thousands of dollars for a tomb here. The cemetery might be one of the most beautiful in the world with respect of the beauty of its buildings, but it is definitely not representative of Buenos Aires or Argentina. It is a place for the rich and famous, the others are buried elsewhere.

The other big cemetery is La Chacarita. Like Recoleta it has got the big artistic vaults, memorials and celebrities, in particular many artists like the tango singer Gardel.

 

It was found in consequence of a yellow fever epidemic when the other cemeteries did not have more capacity. In fact the posh Recoleta cemetery refused to take victims of the epidemic. Special sections are reserved for the british and german community. The german section contains the graves of Hans Langsdorff (1894–1939), Captain of the World War II battleship Admiral Graf Spree who sank his ship in the port of Buenos Aires to avoid being captured by the British, and Friedrich Bergius, who received the nobel price in chemistry in 1931.

However, the biggest part are the endless rows of burial chambers. The older ones are above ground. A lot of them are broken and in some you can detect bones and skulls behind the fragments of the front plate.

 

The newer ones are in endless rows of subterranean tunnels. Some have plastic or real flowers, but save their photographs most of the occupants seem to be forgotten.

 

Beyond there is a big yard of even poorer gravesites. Wooden crosses, some flowers, overgrown with weeds. Some parts are abandoned, the cover is broken, most of the graves not recognisable any more. This is more like a representation of Buenos Aires, with its small community of immensely rich families and endless barrios of unknown poor or old people.

 

Cathedrals of transportation (2) ..... Retiro station(s) in Buenos Aires

At its height at the end of the second world war, the rail network in Argentina extended to 47000 km and was one of the largest and most prosperous in the world. Even now, with 39.966 km left, it is the eigth longest in the world.This is a train of the San Martin line.

In the ninetinth century, during the development of the network, parts were sold of to mostly British investors. The result was that lines were constructed in mainly three different gages, today 26475 in 1676 mm, 2870 km in the european standard gage of 1435 mm and 7711 in a gage of 1000 mm. When the network was nationalised again in 1948, it was owned by 10 Argentine, 7 British and 3 French Companies. The different lines ended in several termini in Buenos Aires, of which after a chaotic succesion of privatisation and nationalisation Constitucion, Once, Lacroce, and Retiro are still used.  

Retiro station in fact is three stations in one. Retiro mitre with a gage of 1676 mm serves the west and north of the country as far as Cordoba and Tucuman via Rosario

For the Mitre station a plan was presented in 1980 by architects Eustace L. Conder, Roger Conder y Sydney G. Follett, and engineer Reginald Reynolds, all British living in Argentina

When it was opened in 1915 it was one of the world's biggest stations

The station was renovated recently.

To take photos on the platform in Mitre and Belgrano station i had to get a permit. This worked well in Belgrano, where I went upstairs alongside an antique elevator and filled a form. In Mitre i only got 5 minutes by the masculine guardess.

Retiro Belgrano with 1000 mm the north and west to Cordoba, Mendoza, Tucuman and the Bolivian border, and

The Belgrano station (former estación Retiro del Ferrocarril Central Córdoba) is a building in French style built by architects Louis Faure Dujarric (french) and Robert Prentice (english) in 1912.

Note the ventilators, which spray cooling water on the platform.

Retiro San Martin the west as far as Mendoza in 1676 mm. Retiro San Martin was started in 1912 but never finished and stayed more looking like a shed.

The station Once (1676 mm) served the west as far as Mendoza Province.

 A serious accident due to neglect happened here in 2012.

 A train crashed into Once station, 51 people were killed and 700 injured. The accident in fact caused the last privatisation of the Argentine rail network.    

Outside Once station there are still a couple of old trains from the great time of Argentine railways awaiting restauration or the scrapyard

 

 For once this part of the station was not heavily guarded.

Remainders of the great days of railroading (11).... The remnants of the tren de las nubes

With the highest point of 4220 m the 941km long railway from Salta in Argentina to Antofagasta in Chile is the fifth highest in the world and the third highest in South America. The 571 km in Argentina are part of the meter gage Ferrocarril General Manuel Belgrano which links Buenos Aires with Bolivia. The Chilean track (Socompa-Antofagasta) is part of the Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia (FCAB).

Together with the railway from Santiago to Mendoza it forms the only rail link between the two countries. Both are out of traffic.

 

The construction of the railway started in 1921 to connect the North of Argentina with Chile across the Andes and to serve the various mines of the area. The Chilean track was inaugurated in 1947 and the complete railway on 20 February 1948.

 

The highest point is the viaduct La Polvorilla. The highest of the line, it was finished in 1932.

Steam engines were put out of service on the General Belgrano line in 1980. One is preserved at the foot of the mountains in Campo Quijano. 

 

Meanwhile freight service has stopped on the Argentine side of the line and all but stopped in Chile. The only train remaining is the tren de las nubes. This tourist train used to link Salta and the highest point of the line at the viaduct La Polvorilla. 

 

Since the lower part of the line is in such a poor condition that it is unsafe for travel, the tren de las nubes now is restricted to the 18 km from San Antonio de las Cobres to the viaduct. Passengers are ferried to San Antonio by bus.

There is talk about reconstruction of the line both in Chile and Argentina, but this topic seems to pop up regularily without much being done. 

 

However, there is a new commuter service for 40 km from Salta to Quilmes. A railcar has been shipped to Salta, and it does a couple of runs daily. However, the track is so bad that it took the signal man quite a while to get the point ready at the entrance to Salta. Note that the train is far too high for the platforms. A makshift entrance platform had to be constructed for the passengers to board. However, this train is very popular since it is much cheaper than the bus on the same route.

In addition, they are busy to reconstruct the section of the General Belgrano line between Jujuy north of Salta and the Bolivian border. They have started by removing all the tracks and, strangly enough continue by rebuilding the stations first.