Por qué no se construyó en América Latina una poderosa red de trenes como la que conecta Europa

Can you imagine being able to take a high-speed train in the heart of Bogotá that will leave you in the center of Quito in less than 6 hours? Or being able to tour Latin Ame

rica

using only the train? Well, these situations, which could be a dream for thousands of Latin Ame

rica

ns like me, have been a reality for Europe for decades. If you have wondered why a powerful train network was not built in Latin America, this video interests you. Going by train from Paris to London takes 2 hours and 16 minutes crossing the English Channel with the famous Eurotunnel, one of the most enormous engineering works built in modern times with the longest underwater tunnel in the world, about 37.8 km.

In total, the tunnel is about 50 km long and inside it has three tunnels: two for rail traffic and one for services and security. It leaves from Folkestone, England and arrives in Calais, in France. 133 billion dollars of trade and hundreds of thousands of passengers flow through it every year at speeds of up to 160 km/h. In Italy, travelers can go from Milan to Florence in 1 hour and 54 minutes when there are 320km of road between those cities. And the train that connects Madrid with Barcelona covers about 620 km in just 2 and a half hours, something that would take about 6 hours by car.

On the other hand, in Latin America, although there are some investments and projects underway, the panorama is very different in terms of service, frequency and distances covered. To get an idea, one of the few exceptions that connects two countries is the section between Posadas, in Argentina, with Encarnación, in Paraguay, of about 8 km. But the situation of the rail networks in the region was not always like this. Furthermore, passenger train networks do exist, but they are not competitive in speed and frequency with other transport options. Basically because they stopped investing in them from the 50s but the abandonment became even more acute in the 80s and up to the 90s.

At BBC Mundo we asked Sebastián Astroza, who is a professor at the University of Concepción, why. and researcher on mobility issues. And the first reasons that appear are economic: In the first place, as Astroza points out, "economic profitability began to be demanded of the train, among other things, despite the fact that the vast majority of train systems in the world need subsidies" . Because, although the trains have a great social impact, many are not economically profitable since they are not self-financing. So here the state of the country's public finances is key. Well, a project like a high-speed train line is very expensive to maintain.

Added to this is the high cost of investment to build them. For example, the Eurotunnel came to cost 13 billion dollars, and that, for example, represents more than a fifth of the general budget of the State of Colombia in 2022. And there are few economies in the world that can afford projects like this. The cost of a high-speed train is between 20 and 30 million dollars per kilometer. While the price of a new lo

como

tive is around 3 million dollars. While a wagon can cost up to 1 million. Taking these figures into account, if we do a calculation, building a high-speed train between Buenos Aires and Córdoba, two cities separated by 650 kilometers, would cost about 16.25 billion dollars.

So for Jorge Kohon, a civil engineer expert in rail transport and a World Bank consultant, the economic reason and the need for many Latin American countries (although not all) to reduce their deficit was behind the discontinuation of many train services in Latin America in the 90s. Another reason that has not been favorable to the development of the train is the long distances in the region. And it is that several Europes could enter the territory that Latin America occupies. To get an idea of ​​how big the region is, it is enough to say that the 4.3 million square kilometers of the 27 members of the European Union plus the United Kingdom occupy just over half of the territory of Brazil.

This makes the option of the train for medium and long distances less competitive compared to the plane, for example, which now offers much more affordable rates. One big difference from Europe, experts tell us, is that when plane prices fell, countries had already developed a mesh of passenger rail networks. But some experts consulted by BBC Mundo also point out that corruption has slowed down the development of the train in the region. From the diversion of funds, to the use of companies linked to political power, through rigged calls or overpricing. Jimena Blanco, head of the Latin American Analysis Department at Verisk Maplecroft, says that this happens a lot in Latin America.

There are many infrastructures that have not been developed due to corruption and some that take decades to finish for the same reason. But, despite all this, currently 2 Latin American countries are betting on passenger train projects. Chilean President Gabriel Boric has proposed an ambitious train plan. The idea is to connect Santiago de Chile with Valparaíso with a fast train, which are the two most populated cities in the country. According to the Chilean Ministry of Public Works, the train will cover 120 km in 45 minutes. And in Mexico, the Mayan Train is already under construction amid much controversy, among other things, due to its environmental impact.

The 1,554-kilometer route wants to unite five important tourist destinations in the Yucatan peninsula such as Cancun, Tulum, Calakmul, Palenque and Chichen Itzá in what is one of the great initiatives to reactivate the Mexican economy. Now both projects have to prove their viability.