Tren de La Costa

Cancelled

The 15-km railway system includes eleven stations, four of which were built by the concessionaire and seven which were rehabilitated. Sociedad Comercial del Plata, the private sponsor, invested US$ 400 million in this project. As of Sep. 1999, the private sponsor was facing financial difficulties because the project has not yielded the expected return. In January 2000, the sponsor restructured its debt with creditor banks; the US$ 141 million in debt will be settled in annual installments, with the first payment due in September 2001 (70% of the debt was raised from Banco Provincia and Dresdner Bank; the remaining 30% was raised from Citibank, Banco Roberts and BNL). In June 2013, the government cancelled the contract. The main reason was that the private partner didn't pay for the use of government assets for more than six months. It also had fines for more than 30% of contract warranty, stretch abandoning, and not fulfilling the annual investment program. The private partner claimed that the government didn't invest the money committed. The Tren de la Costa was underperforming from long ago, in 1996 had 3.600.000 passengers, and during the last years before cancellation only had 500.000 passengers yearly, due to its bad state. Operation after the cancellation to be carried out by a SOE: Sociedad Operadora Ferroviaria Sociedad del Estado(SOFSE) .