Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway Company

Records of the Buenos Aires & Pacific Railway Company Ltd, comprising minutes and financial papers, 1883-1964; reports relating to the South American railway companies Brazil Land Cattle & Packing Company, and the Uruguay Railway Company, 1916. The collection includes papers of associated companies: Argentine Transandine Holdings, Catalinas Warehouses & Mole Company, and Villa Maria & Rufino Railway Company.

The Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway (BA&P) (in Spanish: Ferrocarril Buenos Aires al Pacífico) was one of the Big Four broad gauge, 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in), British-owned companies that built and operated railway networks in Argentina.

The original concession was awarded by the Argentine government in 1872 to John E. Clark for the construction of a railway from Buenos Aires to Chile. It was not until 1882, when the BA&P was registered as a joint-stock company in London, that Clark was able to take over the concession. Initially the new company only intended to build the section between Mercedes, in Buenos Aires Province, and Villa Mercedes in San Luis Province. From Mercedes the company planned to obtain access to the city of Buenos Aires over the Ferrocarril Oeste track. At Villa Mercedes it connected with the Ferrocarril Andino line that ran on to Mendoza and San Juan.

This company was the last of the great Argentine railway companies to be liquidated.

Open

The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

Deposited in 1964-1965.

A detailed list is available on the online catalogue. See also 'A Guide to Manuscript Sources for the History of Latin America and the Caribbean in the British Isles', ed Peter Walne (Oxford University Press, London, 1973). Please contact Special Collections for further information.

Normal copyright restrictions apply.