US$200mn rail investments still on track in southern Chile

Some US$200mn in investments planned for rail services in southern Chile this year will still be made on schedule despite the COVID-19 pandemic, according to state-owned rail firm Fesur.

“Both freight and passenger trains have maintained their services during the pandemic, transporting people who perform essential jobs and maintaining the merchandize supply chain,” Fesur head Víctor Lobos was reported as saying by Diario Concepción.

One of Fesur’s main investments is a US$77mn purchase of rolling stock, which involves 15 new train units that will be provided by Chinese consortium CRRC-Sifang.

These include nine new units for the Biotrén service in Greater Concepción, three for the Corto Laja service and three for the Victoria-Temuco line. 

These new units are expected to start arriving by the end of this year, Lobos said. Meanwhile, Fesur is also working to build a new workshop for the incoming trains in Hualqui municipality. 

The state-owned company is also looking to renovate 70,000 concrete rail ties on its lines, as well as install a total of 2,960t of 24m rails this year.

Other projects being handled by the firm include the extension of the Biotrén service to Lota municipality (US$42mn), which is currently in the engineering stage, and the new Biobío rail bridge (US$220mn), currently undergoing environmental assessment.

With respect to this assessment, environmental evaluation agency SEA suspended the proceedings for the project until July 31, due to the pandemic and a request from Fesur's parent company EFE for additional time to respond to questions from the authority, SEA documents show.