Cross the green strip of the La Plata Forest at the leisurely pace maintained by the University Train at its maximum speed of 40 kilometers per hour – it can be sensed from the comfort of the padded seat – it is the exact measurement so that the journey from the Terminal to the San Juan de Dios station is, from end to end, a peaceful half hour walk. It is more than enough.
Before each of the eight barrier crossings that cross the diesel car made in Swedenthe banderilleros seem like rigorous orchestra conductors dedicated to holding back the caravan of cars, motorcycles, trucks and pedestrians that court the passage of the light blue and white wagon that completes the shortest route of the Rock line.
The state railway company and the National University of La Plata jointly created this means of transportation in order to facilitate the transfer of students to the classrooms.
With a hourly average frequencythe train performs a service for community purposes that brings together students, neighbors and tourists.
What is the route of the University Train like?
For the city visitorsthe adventure begins before the sound of the whistle that announces the departure, under the classic postcard of the main station, on the corner of 1 and Diagonal 80.
It is the recurring photo, crowned by the Dome decorated with green majolica and circular windows, a classic and art nouveau piece implemented in 1906 by the pioneers of the southbound railway extension.
The Terminal is also the monumental setting chosen in 1997 by director Jean Jacques Annaud to focus on Brad Pitt, in the first scene of the film “Seven Years in Tibet.”
The feeling of traveling through a historical site is reinforced on platform 5, the starting point of the University Train.
Although it is a project conceived in these times – it became a reality in April 2013-, the tiny diesel car returns its usefulness to old disused tracks and facilities, among them, part of the route of the Buenos Aires Provincial Railway.
The engine seems about to roar on the track cut in the middle of the closely mown grass, but, far from making any intemperate sound, it calms down again, seeking shelter under the shadows of the trees and glides silently next to the train platform. each of the ten stops on the itinerary.
The car forms a harmonious group together with those simple stops and its figure is only dwarfed in the centuries-old Circunvalación and Meridiano V stations, superb living testimonies of the branches that extended to Elizalde, Brandsen, Magdalena, Pipinas, Lezama and the distant Mirapampa area. , near the Buenos Aires border with La Pampa.
Groups of students ahead of the school year in the summer arrive at their destination at the stations installed in front of the Computer Science, Medicine and Journalism faculties.
They get off or board the train without rushing, intermingled with first time travelers who are looking for Forest trails or Centenario and Pereyra Iraola avenues to extend the recreational circuit on the lake, the amusement park that operates on the shore, the Bioparquehe Museum of Natural Scienceshe Planetarythe modern cafeteria new Student stadium and the monument and the murals exhibited by Gimnasia y Esgrima in homage to René Favaloro, Diego Maradona and Carlos Griguol, central figures in the history of Lobo platense.
On his journey of just over eight kilometersthe University Train borders the thick vegetation cover of the Forest, until it crosses a curve, making a stop at the Diagonal 73 station and fit alongside the straight line of 72nd Avenue. From here, the wide gauge advances -without altering its decelerated pace- in its last stretch to the semi-rural area that surrounds the San Juan de Dios hospital.
The definitive project foresees an extension from that final station to the Gambier railway workshops (at 137 and 52, in Los Hornos, part of the western sector of Greater La Plata). This complete route will have three intermediate stops near the Cemetery and at the intersections of 66th and 60th avenues.
With eyes wide open to capture every detail that sneaks through the carriage windows, at no time does even a minimal drive arise to reach the end point of the journey.
More than that, the colorful street art murals of the Circunvalación station (at 12 and 72) stir the impulse to go down to take note of the brightly colored open-air self-managed gallery, the solid installations of the century-old building, the mast erected next to the grass-covered platform and the old traction and brake levers of the trains.
A stopover in Meridiano V: what to see there
For the next stop, Meridiano V -head of the Provincial Railway to Meridian V-, it is directly advisable to spend a long time and wait for the arrival of the next train.
The place fulfilled its primary function from 1910 to 1961 – when the last passenger service stopped – and continued to receive cargo convoys, until it was disaffected by express order of the military Dictatorship in 1977.
After decades of oblivion and abandonment, the neighborhood residents themselves rescued the station and the cobblestone beach on 71st Street, to recover railway history of the place and shape a polo cultural supported by music bands, theater, circus, acrobatics, artisan stalls, film exhibitions and gastronomy.
On the tracks of the disused platform, the definitive stillness of a German Orenstein-Koppel locomotive from 1937 It gives a glimpse of its decisive place in the Buenos Aires railway past, when it dragged wagons overflowing with granite masses, which were loaded by the prisoners of Sierra Chica in the quarries near Olavarría.
That simple image of dormant strength, contrasted with the frenetic movements of the boys mounted on the station gamesseems to symbolize the renewed hope that the University Train awakened, when it went out into the ring to remove the structures of La Plata’s railway past, which apathy had displaced from the center of the scene decades ago.
A kilometer further, where the straight lines of the train platform end. San Juan de Dios station and the horizon clears, the recovered railway tracks remain for the moment half-hidden under the grass, although ready to re-emerge and regain their lost shine.
Useful data
How to get. From the city of Buenos Aires to the La Plata Terminal Station it is 57 kilometers along the La Plata Highway, 122nd Avenue, 38th Street and Diagonal 80.
How much does it cost. Single fare for the University Train (only paid with SUBE), $40.
Where to get information. 0800-2228736 / (153) 7008736 / www.argentina.gob.ar / Facebook: University Train.