Convergences of the railway's historical process: propose for a comparative study of Argentina and Brazil.

Abstract

The Industrial Heritage Studies have had in the recent decades a considerable interest in South American countries. The joint academic research conducted among neighbouring countries have become a new challenge, not only by the promoting of research programs but also by interest in finding ways to management of railway´s cultural landscape from a systemic view. Within this framework it is developing a comparative study on railway heritage between Brazil (UNESP) and Argentina (UNT-CONICET), where we see convergences processes.The impact produced by the railway system has no similarity during the history of these countries, not after not before. In fact, these territories have the most extensive network of Latin America, near 34.059 km (Argentina) and 30.129 km (Brazil) including undergrounds, urban trains and others. Since the beginning of the installation of the railways to the closing down of a great part of the network, we could observe convergences of the railway?s historical process. We believe that from a shared vision can be understood the processes of birth, growth and partial deactivation of the railroad, as well as identify the most appropriate tools for a comprehensive management process because of the infrastructure that currently has no rail operation. By this way, it will tend to conserve, as an ultimate aim, a valuable heritage that was the germ of the development of vast territories.Considering the hypothesis that there was a shared history between Brazil and Argentina about difficulties relating to railway heritage, the general problem arises from the question: what is the relationship between the railway processes installation of both countries, during the 19th century and the early 20th century? On the other hand, we ask: what are the problems related to the management of the heritage, particularly in themes of protection, that has architectural historic value and that are representative of that period? The studies will focus particularly in the State of São Paulo and Argentine Northwest region whose railway extensions had about 4,000 km (1907) and 4,000 km (1914), respectively, as paradigmatic cases for this comparison. In this opportunity, the aims of this work are to make a comparative historical analysis of the English intervention on railways infrastructures and a brief summary of the heritage protection. Methodologically, this work is bases on complex historical processes in which we intend to obtain as results: common features, reciprocal influences, similarities and differences in development.