Argentina lies rusting and vandalised inside a disused locomotive depot in a poor suburb of San Miguel de Tucumán in north-west Argentina.
No one, it seems, has cried for it for many years. Until now.
A group of visiting British engineers has tracked down this legendary, if mournful, locomotive which railway enthusiasts worldwide assumed had been scrapped long ago.
One of the most efficient steam locomotives ever built, Argentina was the pet project of Juan Perón in the years of his first presidency.
Designed by the brilliant engineer Livio Dante Porta, who died last year aged 81, the metre-gauge ,i>Argentina,/i> was unveiled in 1949. Streamlined, United States-style, for publicity purposes, it was painted in the white and sky blue colours of the Argentine flag, and emblazoned with Perón’s favourite slogans, Mejor que decir es hacer (Better to do than to say) and Mejor que prometer es realizar (Better to carry out than to promise).
The young Porta had gone to see Perón personally to raise funds his first locomotive. The president was keen to promote Argentina as a land of technological prowess, and ordered funding.
So, Porta’s 68-tonne locomotive, diminutive by contemporary US or British standards but powerful beyond its size, waved the flag for Perón and Argentina as it steamed through the pampas in 1949, breaking every power and efficiency record in the Americas.
It rivalled the achievements of Porta’s mentor, André Chapelon of the French national railways, arguably the greatest locomotive engineer.
Porta’s mechanical ingenue rode like a Pullman car, sipped water, savoured coal and pulled 1 200-tonne freight trains at 104kph along lightly-laid and sometimes wobbly tracks.
Despite its tiny 1 270mm driving wheels, it was designed to run at 120kph and in terms of power-to-weight, was like a bantamweight boxer packing the punch of Mike Tyson.
Impressed, Perón ordered Porta to bring the locomotive to Buenos Aires. Gawked at and clambered over by thousands of visitors, Porta and his wife, Ana, slept on the locomotive’s footplate to keep Argentina safe from souvenir-seekers.
Modestly, the president has its name changed to Presidente Perón.
Renamed Argentina after his fall in 1955, the locomotive was prematurely retired and stored in a depot in Tucumán in 1961. Porta had hoped to rescue and restore it to an even more efficient form, but, in a country prone to chronic economic depression, there has been no spare cash to spend on such quixotic campaigns.
Now, Argentina has been found by a group of visiting mechanical and computer engineers led by Martyn Bane, an IT expert from Bath.
The aim, championed by Bane, is to raise £10 000 to move the locomotive to safety in Buenos Aires and then to raise more money to bring it back to superheated, updated and even more efficient life. He hopes to provide what Porta had wanted before his death — a working example for future generations willing to learn what a steam locomotive could be in the 21st century.
For further information visit www.martynbane.co.uk/argentina.htm – Guardian Unlimited Â