The lack of interconnection and intermodal services discourages the use of rail and pushes cargo towards trucks, even on corridors where rail could be more efficient and competitive. Law 27.132, enacted in 2015, clearly defined that interconnection and intermodality must be pillars of railway policy. Intermodality would allow integrating rail with road transport, leveraging the significant private investments made in the trucking sector, while full network interconnection would enable the transport of cargo from any point in the country to any destination, exponentially expanding the market. In this context, various sector actors consider it key that the Government urgently reviews the current regulation. They warn that the regulatory omission is not a minor technical detail: it is one of the central factors explaining why the Argentine railway remains disconnected from the real economy and continues to demand public resources instead of generating them. This logic not only limits long-distance cargo transport but also excludes intermediate towns and the bulk of the productive fabric. According to official data from the National Transport Regulation Commission, the Argentine railway system currently serves only 231 clients, compared to an estimated universe of 519,769 commercial companies of all sizes that could be potential users. This refers to the omission of clause C of article 2 of National Law 27.132 on railway reform, which establishes the central principle of interconnection of railway systems and transport intermodality—a key point that was never effectively incorporated into subsequent regulatory norms after 2018. The regulatory failure has generated a fragmented operational model, with railway networks functioning as isolated compartments, without commercial or operational integration. The open access model designed in recent years ended up favoring very few operators, concentrated in large cargo volumes and limited corridors, leaving out the majority of potential users. Sector specialists maintain that this scheme is structurally deficitary. This implies that more than 99.9% of the productive fabric is excluded from the railway, consolidating an almost absolute dependence on road transport. From the sector, they warn that the historical argument that 'there is no cargo for the train' inverts the logic of the problem. They point out that a regulatory correction aligned with the law would allow attracting more operators, fostering real competition, and reducing fiscal losses, in line with the official objective of eliminating structural subsidies and improving State efficiency. The final definition is now in the hands of the Executive Branch, at a time when the Government is promoting an agenda of greater competition and seeking to close the chronic deficits of public companies. However, the different governments that later advanced in the regulation of the privatization scheme omitted incorporating that principle. By reducing the number of operational branches and limiting the client base, the system requires increasing state contributions to sustain itself. Estimates indicate that, under the current model, it will be necessary to allocate about 10,000 million dollars in public funds for the reconstruction and maintenance of the tracks, without this guaranteeing a substantial improvement in profitability or service coverage. The omitted clause of the law is, paradoxically, the one that could generate the greatest economic impact. The result is a disconnected system, unable to offer comprehensive services and to meet the potential demand of hundreds of thousands of companies. The problem can be illustrated with a simple example: just as it would be unfeasible for a mobile phone system where a user could not communicate with customers of another company, the Argentine railway operates today without real interconnection between its different networks. Buenos Aires, December 23, 2025 - Total News Agency - TNA - A technical and regulatory error dragged on for more than seven years in the railway privatization scheme could lead to a million-dollar impact for the Argentine State and further deepen the deficit nature of the system. The absence of demand would not be the cause of the railway's decline, but its direct consequence. In practice, this prevents a cargo from being transported continuously between different points in the country if it must cross areas under the control of more than one concessionaire.
