The Buenos Aires Underground, locally known as Subte, is a rapid transit system that serves the area of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The first section of this network opened in 1913, making it the 13th earliest subway network in the world and the first underground railway in Latin America, the Southern Hemisphere, and the Spanish-speaking world, with the Madrid Metro opening five years later, in 1919. As of 2023, Buenos Aires is the only Argentine city with a metro system.
Line A is the oldest line of the Buenos Aires Underground. Opened to the public on 1 December 1913, it was the first underground line in South America, the Southern Hemisphere and the Spanish-speaking world. It made Buenos Aires the 13th city in the world to have an underground transport service. The line stretches 9.8 km (6.1 mi) from Plaza de Mayo and San Pedrito and runs under the full length of the Avenida de Mayo and part of the Avenida Rivadavia, and is used by 258,000 people per day.
Line B of the Buenos Aires Underground runs 11.75 kilometres (7.30 mi) from Leandro N. Alem to Juan Manuel de Rosas in Villa Urquiza. Line B opened to the public on 17 October 1930.
Line C of the Buenos Aires Underground, that runs from Retiro to Constitución terminus, opened on 9 November 1934, and it has a length of 4.3 km (2.7 mi). It runs under Lima Sur, Bernardo de Irigoyen, Carlos Pellegrini, Esmeralda, la Plaza San Martín and Avenida Ramos Mejia streets. It not only connects to every other line on the system, but its termini at Retiro and Constitución also connect it to some of the most important commuter rail networks in Buenos Aires, such as the Mitre and Roca lines and also long-distance passenger services. It is thus an important artery in Buenos Aires' transport system. At the same time, it is also the shortest line in both terms of length and number of stations.
Line D of the Buenos Aires Underground runs from Catedral to Congreso de Tucumán. The line opened on 3 June 1937 and has been expanded to the north several times. The line is currently 11 km long and has 16 stations, while running approximately parallel to the city's coastline.
Line H is a line of the Buenos Aires Underground. The first phase, between Plaza Once and Caseros, which opened on 18 October 2007, currently stretches over 8.8 km between Hospitales and Facultad de Derecho stations. It is the first entirely new line built in Buenos Aires since the opening of Line E on 20 June 1944.
Line E of the Buenos Aires Underground runs from Retiro to Plaza de los Virreyes, a total distance of 12 km. Opened in 1944, the Line E was the last completely new line to be added to the Buenos Aires Underground, until 2007 when Line H was opened. The line has a history of being re-routed and extended due to having been historically the line with the lowest passenger numbers on the network.
The Premetro is a 7.4-kilometer long (4.6 mi) light rail line that runs along the outskirts of Buenos Aires, connecting with the Buenos Aires Underground line E, at Plaza de los Virreyes station and then to General Savio, with a short branch to Centro Cívico. It opened in 1987 and is operated by Metrovías. Originally, the Premetro was to include many more lines, but shortly after the privatisation of the railways the projects were postponed and never materialised and only "Premetro E2" was built.
The Mitre line is an Argentine broad gauge commuter rail service in Buenos Aires Province and is part of the Ferrocarril General Bartolomé Mitre division. The service is currently operated by the State-owned company Operadora Ferroviaria Sociedad del Estado after the Government of Argentina rescinded its contract with Corredores Ferroviarios in March 2015.
The Sarmiento line is a broad gauge commuter rail service in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, run by the state-owned Trenes Argentinos since 11 September 2013.
The Argentine railway network consisted of a 47,000 km (29,204 mi) network at the end of the Second World War and was, in its time, one of the most extensive and prosperous in the world. However, with the increase in highway construction, there followed a sharp decline in railway profitability, leading to the break-up in 1993 of Ferrocarriles Argentinos (FA), the state railroad corporation. During the period following privatisation, private and provincial railway companies were created and resurrected some of the major passenger routes that FA once operated.
Materfer is an Argentine manufacturer of railway and road vehicles, located in the city of Ferreyra in Córdoba Province. The company was established by Fiat Concord in the late 1950s, being its subsidiary until 1980 when Sevel Argentina took over Fiat vehicles.
Emepa Group S.A. is an Argentine manufacturer of railway vehicles and owner of Ferrovías, with headquarters located in the city of Buenos Aires. It had formerly owned Ferrocentral, which ran services from Buenos Aires to Córdoba and San Miguel de Tucumán on the Mitre Network, however the state-owned company SOFSE took over these services in 2014 and the subsidiary now remains inactive.
Emprendimientos Ferroviarios S.A. (Emfer) was an Argentine rail rolling stock manufacturer based in San Martín, Buenos Aires. The company also remodelled and repaired rail vehicles and had previously manufactured rolling stock for the Sarmiento and Mitre commuter rail lines in Buenos Aires. The Emfer rail rolling stock ran on the two lines until 2014 when they were replaced with CSR Corporation Limited Electric Multiple Units.
The Fiat-Materfer Buenos Aires Underground rolling stock was built by the Argentine company Materfer - then a subsidiary of Fiat Ferroviaria - beginning in 1980 and continuing on through that decade. It was originally conceived to standardise the diverse rolling stock of the Buenos Aires Underground with the use of one model throughout all the lines. However, with the economic and political turmoil faced in the country during and following the collapse of the National Reorganisation Process junta in 1983, its production ended up being far more limited. During the 2010s, the cars were used as temporary stock for two lines, being phased out as newer models arrived from overseas.
The 200 Series is a set of underground cars manufactured by China CNR Corporation and CITIC Construction for use on Line A of the Buenos Aires Underground in Argentina. The cars replace the 100-year-old La Brugeoise cars which operated on the line up until 2013. The Buenos Aires Underground ordered 45 of these units, followed by a further 105 which have been put into service on the line.
The CSR EMU is a series of electric multiple unit cars manufactured by CSR Corporation Limited for use on Buenos Aires' commuter rail network. As of 2015, the trains operated on three of the city's lines and 705 cars were manufactured, with each line using a different number of cars per train. They were created for use on lines electrified using both third rail and overhead lines.
The Siemens-Schuckert Orenstein & Koppel is an underground car formerly used on the Buenos Aires Underground first built by Siemens-Schuckert and Orenstein & Koppel in 1934, 1937 and 1944 with a smaller number of cars built in Argentina during the 1950s. The Siemens O&K rolling stock made up the entirety of the trains used on the three lines built by the Hispanic-Argentine Company for Public Works and Finances (CHADOPyF) and has since served on every line of the Underground from 1934 to 2016, with cars refurbished by the Emepa Group and Alstom continued to function on the network till 2017.
The Buenos Aires Underground has one of the most diverse metro fleets in the world, and has had some of the oldest models in operation on any network. The network began with a relatively standardised fleet, but throughout its over 100-year-long history, it has seen numerous purchases which have created cases where some lines operate numerous models. Recently there have been increased efforts to modernise and standardise the fleets, with large purchases from China CNR Corporation and Alstom.
The 300 Series are a set of underground cars manufactured by Alstom in Brazil for use on the Buenos Aires Underground. They are used on Line H of the network, and more have been introduced on Line D where they operate alongside the similar 100 Series.
