General Manuel Belgrano Railway projects to run passenger services between La Quiaca and San Salvador de Jujuy, both cities in Jujuy Province. The main lines departed from Retiro station in Buenos Aires to the north through the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán, Chaco, Formosa, Salta, Jujuy, San Luis, Mendoza, San Juan, La Rioja and Catamarca. In 1876, Ferrocarril Central Norte started services from Córdoba to Tucumán. It was the first metre gauge in Argentina, mainly due to economic reasons. It had been built by the Argentine State to expand Central Argentine Railway network (Rosario-Córdoba), a British-owned company by
San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca founded until 1683, by Fernando de Mendoza y Mate de Luna. "Catamarca" comes from Quechua meaning "fortress on the slope". The city, which had only 8,000 inhabitants in 1882 and was reached by a railway line in 1888, grew very slowly, and the region remained poor even in the middle of the 20th century. This situation was exacerbated by nepotism on the part of the ruling Saadi family, before they lost political power in the 1990s. In spite of this, the province remains still politically unstable, and a large part of its population lives in precarious conditions. The warm semi-arid