North – South Railway is ready after 36 years

After decades of route changes, technical problems and partial inaugurations, the North-South Railway route became fully operational and represents an alternative for the transport of cargo in the country, especially foodstuffs destined for large urban consumption centers in Brazil. and abroad. Almost 2.300 kilometers long, it was divided into two parts. The first, ready since 2010, goes from Palmas, in Tocantins, to Açailândia, in Maranhão, at a cost of R$2,6 billion. The stretch from Estrela do Oeste, in São Paulo, to Tocantins consumed around R$11 billion.

The railway was completed this year, after the concessionaire Rumo won the auction and took over the lot in 2019. With it, it is possible to make the first interconnected train journey between four of the five Brazilian regions. Along the way, there are warehouses that have undergone adaptations to accommodate terminals, such as Porto Seco de Anápolis, in Goiás. Locations like this help with the loading and unloading of containers.

A train with 80 wagons is equivalent to 170 trailers, for example. This makes it clear that, as experts have pointed out for a long time, the way for the country to grow even further is to have a railway network that connects the main production centers to ports, which are, in some cases, thousands of kilometers away. Saturated highways cause waste, high maintenance costs and delays, reducing Brazilian competitiveness in a scenario in which our main competitors have already sought to compensate for these flanks.

With continental dimensions and diverse biomes that represent a challenge for the homogeneity of infrastructure, Brazil still has another weak point: it has no outlet to the Pacific Ocean, which would make it easier to serve Asian buyers, including China, which is our main partner. commercial. According to the former minister, Roberto Rodrigues, through an agreement with neighboring countries, a section of joint administration would provide greater speed in the delivery of cargo that currently takes longer to travel around the world to reach their destinations.

The delay in completing works like this means that many elements of the structure are already out of date in the face of current demands to shorten distances, a decisive factor in the competitiveness of the global market. Also former minister and now senator Tereza Cristina, said that foreign colleagues are perplexed to learn that Brazil does not make better use of its rivers, for example. River ports are common in the USA, Brazil's great rival in global agribusiness prominence.

Expectations indicate that the inauguration of the new railway will leverage the national effort to provide alternatives to producers and all those involved in the agricultural chain, in order to optimize transport and comply with increasingly strict guidelines in terms of sanitary compatibility, sustainable practices and search for renewable energy sources. Trains carry more, pollute less, require less invasive interventions in landscapes and travel long distances, reconciling growth and preservation goals.