Colombia revives its old dream of moving by train

The Government of Gustavo Petro wants to fulfill the desire of Aureliano Triste in

One Hundred Years of Solitude

.

Like many Colombians, one of Aureliano Buendía's sons dreamed of a train arriving in his sleepy town and revolutionizing it with the latest inventions of the time, the opportunity to travel and the promise of progress.

But in reality the trains were not eternal and, both in the fictional Macondo and in many towns in Colombia, their ruins remained as a memory of unfulfilled desires.

Now, the Executive promises to recover an old network of 3,533 kilometers – only 1,074 are operational – and take it to 5,400 by 2050. “The yellow train [of Macondo] (...) returns with the certainty of change, innovation and progress ”, the Ministry of Transportation announced this week.

Splendor and decay

Most of Colombia's railway network was built between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, when airplanes and roads did not exist or were not as important as they are today.

The locomotives made it possible for mountainous regions such as Cundinamarca, Antioquia or Santander to transport their products more easily to the Magdalena River, which connects the interior of the country with the Caribbean Sea and for centuries was the axis of trade.

The 1920s brought the greatest splendor: the networks, managed by the regions, expanded with the financing of international loans for the coffee boom and a part of the compensation that the United States paid for the loss of Panama.

The decline, as in other parts of the world, began in the middle of the century with the expansion of roads and greater availability of automobiles.

Manuel Felipe Gutiérrez, former director of the National Infrastructure Agency (ANI) during the Government of Iván Duque, explains by phone that trucks were cheaper to transport cargo, they had fewer difficulties in places with high slopes and they could stop anywhere.

“The road began to be prioritized, without ignoring that 3,000 kilometers of railway were a great achievement that had been built little by little and with a lot of sacrifice for the country,” he comments.

The Government, for its part, sought to optimize services with the nationalization of all networks in 1954 and the centralization of their services in the company Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Colombia.

A guard stops traffic while a train passes, in Uribia, in 2005.RICARDO MAZALAN (AP)

Fernando Rey, a civil engineer who was part of the state company, points out in a telephone conversation that resources began to become scarce as transporters consolidated themselves as an actor capable of exerting pressure to prioritize roads.

This added to the difficulties that trains had always faced in Colombia: the topographical challenge of the Andes and the lack of articulation with other modes of transportation.

The measurement of the width of the tracks that the country used due to its topography, in addition, became obsolete and made the arrival of new trains difficult.

The State liquidated Ferrocarriles Nacionales in 1991 and replaced it with Ferrovías, which operated through concessions and closed in 2003.

An article by three professors from the University of Los Andes evaluates that another cause of the failure of Ferrocarriles Nacionales was poor administration.

“It suffered from the common problems of state-owned companies in Latin America: poor management practices, clientelism, corruption and unionized employees in politically motivated organizations,” they point out.

Rey, on the other hand, points out that the problem was the lack of financing due to the prioritization of roads.

He says that corruption came later, with Ferrovías.

“National Railways was managed well: they had trains, the workshops were optimized and the crews were perfectly defined.

But the State was not far-sighted with the resources, it created Ferrovías and corruption ate it,” he emphasizes.

Remnants

There are only three operational corridors left in the state network.

The only successful one is the coal train between Chiriguaná and Santa Marta, concessioned to the company Ferrocarriles del Norte de Colombia (Fenoco): it has 246 kilometers and moved 30.9 million tons of cargo in 2023, according to government data.

Then follows the central La Dorada-Chiriguaná corridor, which is 521 kilometers long and transported 182,000 tons and 59,815 passengers in the same year.

Finally, the 257-kilometer stretch between Bogotá and Belencito (Boyacá) registered 23,000 tons in 2023 and 424,000 passengers, which are divided between 410,000 on a route to the universities in the savannah that surrounds the capital, and 14,000 on a Christmas train

There is also a 150 kilometer route between the Cerrejón coal mine and Puerto Bolívar (La Guajira), but it is private and is not part of the network.

The Executive celebrates these days that the volumes of La Dorada-Chiriguaná have increased by 104% compared to the 89,000 tons in 2022. This, according to experts, shows greater confidence among investors that the Government will bet on trains.

Only between January and February of this year, 9,000 tons have already been transported between Bogotá and Belencito (more than a third of everything transported in 2023).

However, they are marginal figures compared to the 30.9 million of the successful Feneco coal train.

Reactivation

The National Development Plan (PND) of the Petro Government, approved early last year, includes the recovery of the railways as one of its priorities.

Projects are contemplated throughout the country: from commuter trains in Bogotá, Cali and the Coffee Region, which have been in the works since previous years, to longer sections that reach Catatumbo, Medellín, the Gulf of Urabá, Girardot and Barrancabermeja.

According to the president of the National Infrastructure Agency, Francisco Ospina Ramírez, the goal of this four-year period is to award three contracts totaling 1,817 kilometers: the new La Dorada-Chiriguaná concession and two sections that go from Bogotá and Buenaventura to the central network.

The Minister of Transportation, William Camargo, reported on Thursday that there is a railway budget of 30 billion pesos (about 7.7 billion dollars) for the coming years.

So far, 464,000 million pesos (around 120 million dollars) have been invested in five contracts that include conservation work on the Pacific roads, the modernization of Bogotá-Belencito, the maintenance of La Dorada-Chiriguaná and the studies of pre-feasibility of concessions planned for this four-year period.

“We are looking for a 26% reduction in logistics costs.

Transporting a container abroad from Bogotá to Caribbean ports can cost around $2,450, but with the railways that cost would drop to approximately $1,800,” he explained during a press conference.

Although there are still years before any of the new sections see the light of day, the Government has already deployed a campaign on social networks with the hashtag #VuelveElTren.

A central part has been a documentary,

La Colombia del Tren

, which aims directly at nostalgia.

“The first time I rode one I was about 12 years old and my dad took me from La Laguna station to Chiquinquirá to bring corn and honey,” says a man.

“It was our first park.

We came here to play, we came to watch the train go by,” says a woman.

“It is a great dream that I want to have again... so that my beloved people can once again have the joy that I felt many years ago and that I want my children and grandchildren to feel too,” adds another testimony.

A section of the Guali River railway bridge, during its construction, in 1908.Science & Society Picture Librar (Getty Images)

Mauricio Becerra, director of the Industrial Engineering program at the Universidad del Rosario, points out in a video call with this newspaper that railways have always had a “very cultural” meaning.

“The older people remember the arrival of the train... that it brought development, it brought growth and it brought products,” he emphasizes.

In that sense, they have always been “an electoral workhorse” and the idea of ​​recovering them has been well received by citizens.

In the case of Petro, furthermore, it is directly linked to the idea of ​​a country in the process of industrialization.

“They cannot be seen as isolated things.

The issue of transportation is 100% logistical... it refers to how to add value to products and make them arrive faster,” he highlights.

Projections

The professor from the Universidad del Rosario considers that the Executive's announcements are positive and that progress is possible if European experiences of strong state investments are imitated and public-private alliances are formed.

The challenge, however, is for the next administrations to maintain the projects.

“In four years we will not be able to make much progress... it would have to be thought of in the long term, in phases, and at the head of regional governments,” adds Becerra.

Likewise, there may be more difficulties than in Europe to encourage passenger transportation: the distances in Colombia are greater and that complicates competition against airplanes, especially if expensive high-speed trains are not available.

Rey, for his part, lists several positive points about recovering the railroads.

He explains that they are more efficient with very heavy loads over long distances, that they have a lower environmental impact, that they are safer and that they are more comfortable.

He is critical of previous governments because he believes they neglected them.

For this reason, he appreciates that the current Administration wants to “revitalize” them.

“Now what we have to do is call the attention of the Government so that they dump all the load they can on the trains, in all places,” he comments.

“It is not about ending automobile transportation.

"They must be integrated, we must have a medium and long-term vision of creating companies that operate trains, trucks and ships."

Dimitri Zaninovich, former director of the National Infrastructure Agency during the Presidency of Juan Manuel Santos, remembers that previous administrations were also interested — Álvaro Uribe's, for example, reopened the Bogotá-Belencito section in 2003.

“We must recognize that this Government has a commitment to trains, but they are receiving many structures that have been in the works for a long time,” he emphasizes.

For him, there were priorities to satisfy before he could move forward with the railroads.

“We have already made a huge investment with Fourth Generation (4G) roads in the main corridors.

It was difficult to think about the train if you didn't have that figured out,” he adds.

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