Railway Privatisation in Argentina (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Following a prolonged period of hyperinflation in the 1980s, accompanied by a steep increase in fiscal deficit and a sharp fall in reserves, the Argentine government, under the presidency of Carlos Menem from 1989, initiated a series of neoliberal reforms which included the privatisation of public utility companies (telephones, gas, electricity and water) together with the entire railway network. Since railway nationalisation in 1948, during the presidency of Peron, the network had been operated by the state-owned company Ferrocarriles Argentinos (FA) which comprised the six relatively independent divisions, Sarmiento, Mitre, Urquiza, San Martn, Belgrano and Roca. Before privatisation began in 1990 FA ran a national network of about 35,000 km, employed 92,000 people and was losing more than US$1.0 billion a year with much of the track and many of the locomotives and rolling stock in poor condition.