The Argentine railway system is in a state of emergency. This short and well-known phrase has been the normal state of the train world for decades. And if you put a magnifying glass on the branches, this is where Sarmiento lived long before tragedy once defined the investment that this line now supports.
Argentina decided many years ago to proceed with impulses and sudden braking on its way out of the state of emergency. In other words, investment plans that should be seen in the rearview mirror are stopped, slowed down, canceled or, on the contrary, accelerated, according to the state of public finances, desires and priorities at that moment. While a state of emergency is declared and maintained, trains are filled with passengers.
Then, when something happens, the lights come on, the incomplete plans are reviewed, things speed up for a while, and it all goes back to the historical cycle of Argentina repeating itself.
According to those who looked closely at Deviation in linersThe accident does not appear to be related to human error. After eliminating the driver, who has nothing to do with this situation, the view is focused on the track system, which creates the “path” that the formation must follow.
What happened at Liniers, according to two technicians who know the Sarmiento branch, its formations and infrastructure, It is the typical accident that occurs when a track change occurs with the train over the railway change network. That is, the formation passes, the first cars follow a path, and at that moment the road moves. The rest continued along another iron road. They say that the car left at a diagonal becomes a kind of “coupling” between the two formations that rotate on separate roads.
now, They say that changing the route is impossible to do manually. “The track system proves that once the signalman sets the track, the track has a mechanism called interlocking. That is, it cannot be manually adjusted or changed,” says a railway expert.
Then the technicians wonder why he moves with the formation on the network of changes. There may be several options: lack of maintenance, a system malfunction, or a defect in the manufacturing of a part. This is an area that needs to be explored, and this is where there may be some human failure.
Which “Interlock system”which prevents human error when boarding a train, is part of the investment plan that unleashed this new emergency on the railways. That sign is a postponed project he started Florencio Randazzo He continued as Minister of Transport William Dietrich And the pandemic Alberto Fernandez In the middle, he interrupted himself. It is currently one of the essential works that is part of the emergency business plan. In fact, part of it is now being implemented.
Technicians on the Sarmiento Line commented that the derailment could have been much greater had it not been for the formations and general condition of the area. Although there are pending works, the track system on that part of the branch does not show much deterioration. In addition, the cars responded efficiently to avoid a rollover, for example.
The railway system is in a constant state of emergency. There doesn’t seem to be a priority list, a steady flow and an improvement plan that will definitively pull urban trains out of their rut.
This situation has further exposed the Libertarian government’s decision not to proceed with some actions, however, Some projects are being implemented in Sarmiento. But the reality is that the former, with duplicationFor Fernandes and Sergio MassaAs the top man at the Ministry of Transport during the four years of the Kirchner administration, There was practically no progress on any railway works, except Belgrano SurA large portion of the bridge was built to raise it and remove the level crossings.
It’s true that things have been done since then Tragedy once And that many of them ended up preventing the derailment from ending in a much larger accident. But apart from strategic planning, what happened was related to sporadic reactions rather than a real plan of action.
For example, Sarmiento loops 7 kilometers through an abandoned tunnel. Not only that, From Caballito onwards, it cuts through the city and western Buenos Aires like a true urban dagger. Without planning and without an action plan, the matter cannot be solved. Regardless of whether accidents occur or not, the train will move at a speed of 20 kilometers per hour in some sections. You will never get out of an emergency.
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