RAILWAY EXPANSION 223 



Valiento Noailles, examining the general plan of the 

 system, noticed the profound difference between the 

 railways of Argentine and those of Europe. " In 

 Europe/' he said, " the railways are constructed to 

 serve existing centres of production and consumption 

 . . . Our Argentine railways are to facilitate coloniza- 

 tion." Corresponding to each occupation of a new 

 area of the Pampean plain by the farmer or the 

 breeder is the construction in that area of a new net- 

 work of lines which are fed by its traffic and in turn 

 help it to increase its production. The more pro- 

 ductive the region is, the closer are the meshes of 

 this network. They are wider in the pastoral than in 

 the agricultural areas. The period of the develop- 

 ment of the southern lines in the province of Buenos 

 Aires corresponds with the expansion of breeding 

 when the Pampa had been pacified. The railway 

 reached Azul in 1876. The Ayacucho branch was 

 opened in 1880, and continued as far as Tres Arroyos 

 in 1887. The completion of the Bahia Blanca line, 

 via Azul and Olavarria, in 1884, is itself merely one 

 of the dates in this colonizing period. The great 

 period of agricultural colonization at Santa Fe and 

 the construction of the system of lines that serve it 

 begin a little later, and last from 1880 to 1890 (exten- 

 sion of the Central Argentine system, the railways of 

 the province of Santa Fe, and the narrow-gauge 

 railway from Rosario to Cordoba). 



The part that the railway has played in colonization 

 is plainly seen in the present completion of the system 

 which has developed freely on the even surface of 

 the Pampean plain. The lines radiate round the port 

 of Buenos Aires and, in a less degree, round the ports 

 of Rosario and Bahia Blanca. What seems at first 

 sight to be the symmetry of the railway map will be 

 found on closer examination to be less perfect ; while 

 the Atlantic coast between La Plata and Bahia Blanca 

 has no ports, the Parana has quite a number of suit- 



