Rail transport in Brazil


Rail transport in Brazil began in the 19th century and there were many different railway companies. The railways were nationalized under RFFSA in 1957. Between 1999 and 2007, RFFSA was broken up and services are now operated by a variety of private and public operators, including Rumo Logística, Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos and SuperVia.
Most railways in Brazil are for freight transportation or urban passenger transportation. Only two inter-city passenger railways survive: the Carajás Railway and the Vitória-Minas Railway, both operated by Vale S.A.

Track gauge

The rail system in Brazil operates on three rail gauges:
A 12 km section of the former gauge Estrada de Ferro Oeste de Minas is retained as a heritage railway.
Metros operating, and under construction:
Steam-powered, horse-drawn and electric tramways operated in Brazil from 1859 until 1989, new systems were introduced in the 1980s and 90s in Rio de Janeiro and Campinas with no success, nevertheless, that may change soon as studies are being conducted to introduce tramway systems in Goiânia, and Curitiba now plans a light metro to replace bus rapid transit in a major corridor, and in Cariri, the Cariri MetroTram that will run between Crato and Juazeiro do Norte is under construction.

Intercity trains

Although Brazil has one of the largest rail networks, it lacks passenger transportation. Passenger trains were controlled by state-run companies until a mass privatization occurred in 1996–1999. By then, most tracks and rolling stock were in a very poor condition and most trains would not run over 60 km/h even on broad gauge, forcing the now private-run railway companies to shut down almost every single regional and long-distance service in the entire country in the next 5 years. The situation remains the same as of 2025.
Brazil is densely populated on the coast and southeast regions, making passenger train operation highly feasible; some areas, such as the extended metropolitan region North and East of São Paulo, have an extremely high demand for regional and intercity railway development. As an example, over 4 million inhabitants reside in the 150 km area north of Greater São Paulo and over 3 million inhabitants in the 450 km area between São Paulo and Rio that have absolutely no passenger rail transportation and rely on other transportation, such as airplanes in the case of São Paulo - Rio de Janeiro air bridge, which is one of the busiest shuttle air routes in the world, with flights taking off every 10 minutes between both cities. And closer destinations need to rely exclusively on intercity buses that suffer from capacity issues and are very frequently subject to delays due to congestion.
The state of São Paulo used to have an extensive network of long-distance rail running on electrified and mostly rectified tracks, with specifically designed broad-gauge sections in the 1970s built for 160km/h electric train operation. The number of passengers from 1980s dwindled, due to lack of funds, the economic crisis at the end of the military dictatorship era in Brazil, lack of interest from the new governments in railway investment, and several design flaws that were never corrected, mainly:
  • Severely limited capacity north of São Paulo: The line between São Paulo and Campinas was double-track, but never triple or quad-tracked, which meant that faster trains were incapable of overtaking the ever increasing frequency of stopping commuter trains on Line 7 of São Paulo commuter rail network, which increased journey times between São Paulo and Campinas from 1h 15min to almost 3h. Further connections north of Campinas suffered from poor railway maintenance and winding tracks through the dense urban aglomeration, with electric trains being capable of reaching 120km/h+ only in more sparsely populated sections north of Rio Claro, from where the electrified tracks did not go much further, requiring extra time necessary to swap for slower diesel locomotives, bringing the whole average journey times down.
  • Lack of suitable rolling stock: Most of the passenger train compositions were made with 1930s to 1940s built V8 electric locomotives which suffered from high maintenance due to their age, and a small amount of relatively modern 1950s Budd passenger cars amongst many old passengers cars. Diesel locomotives were mostly designed for freight, with maximum speeds of rarely more than 90km/h, and slow acceleration. During the late 1970s modern DMUs were got from Hungray which were a great improvement in terms of comfort, technology, and speed, and were meant to be used on São Paulo-Rio connections to achieve record average speeds in connecting both capitals in 6h. But due to unpredicted design mismatches due to the terrain those trains were designed to run, meant that it did not have enough torque to climb the Serra do Mar mountains, and they were repurposed for connections North of São Paulo, which suffered greatly from the above-mentioned point.
  • Mixed gauge: São Paulo had a decently sized broad-gauge network, but most of the network was narrow-gauge. For example, the metre-gauge Mogiana line, which was the most important narrow-gauge line in the state and amongst the main railways in Brazil, had passenger services begin in Campinas and continue all the way to the country capital of Brasilia. Although this railway was partly electrified and mostly rectified, with curve radius that theoretically could achieve over 120km/h, the nature of metre-gauge and lack of suitable higher-speed capable narrow-gauge rolling stock meant that it could still not compete in speed with the connections between Campinas, Ribeirao Preto, Uberaba, Uberlandia and Brasilia, the problem was further aggravated due to the need to switch trains in Campinas, which already took too long to travel from São Paulo due to the previously mentioned bottleneck.
These reasons, amongst others, meant that after privatization, the newly formed operators were not interested in the vast amounts of investment that would be required to make the passenger lines profitable.
Currently the country's rail network is almost entirely used for heavy freight transport only, all of the electrification of routes which were used for intercity passenger trains in broad gauge lines in São Paulo are completely dismantled, as well as most of the train stations that are now in ruins. Much of the dual-track lines are also abandoned, with trains making use of only one track now, the vast majority of which are in a very poor state of maintenance, running at very slow speeds. The lines and branch lines which were used for passenger only, which were not profitable for current private operators, and are now completely abandoned. Brazil today has only a few heritage railways and two long-distance trains operated by Vale on narrow gauge that are mainly used of a tourist attraction due to the scenic journey rather than a transportation system, especially due to the slow operating speed, making Brazil's land rail public transportation infrastructure one of the worst and slowest, in average speed, in the world.

Rapid-transit and commuter

São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro both have extensive rapid transit and commuter train routes. Although there may be discussed that they are much less than it should be for cities with their proportions, both systems are almost fully electrified and mostly have modern air-conditioned EMUs. Both systems are in constant expansion, but São Paulo is growing much faster, with currently 6 projects of subway and commuter lines being applied.
Apart from the large systems in Rio and São Paulo, the further cities in Brazil with smaller commuter train systems include the Cariri region, João Pessoa, Maceió, Natal, and Teresina. The other Brazilian metro systems are the Belo Horizonte Metro, Federal District Metro, Fortaleza Metro, Porto Alegre Metro, Recife Metro and Salvador Metro.

Future developments

In the light of the problems with the lack of intercity passenger rail transportation, there are many projects to reinstall fast passenger trains back to Brazil, although all of them are on halt due to the current political and financial crisis.

High-speed rail

In September 2008, Brazil's Transportation Ministry announced a high-speed train project for the world cup connecting São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Campinas. This would cost US$15 billion. These lines will use standard gauge.
The current financial crisis has put this high-speed project on complete halt, and has no prediction on when it will be resumed.

Regional Trains in São Paulo

In 2010, São Paulo state government showed off a project to build up 4 regional intercity trains routes connecting the area surrounding São Paulo with high population cities close by, which today rely exclusively on intercity buses that are almost completely saturated and running at very short intervals at full capacity. The original plan was for construction to start 2013–2014, but the Brazilian financial crisis that it is suffering since 2015 has put all projects on standby, and the next prediction is for construction to start only by 2025.