First years and development
Materfer was established by Fiat Ferroviaria, through Fiat Concord, a consortium formed by many FIAT subsidiaries operating in Argentina. The company built a factory to manufacture rolling stock in the country to provide goods for Ferrocarriles Argentinos, the state-owned company that operated all the railway network then.[2]
The factory started operations in 1958, producing Materfer's first diesel multiple unit, the 7131, in 1962. Between 1956 and 1968, a consortium of Italian and Argentine companies, "Gruppo Aziende Italo Argentine" (GAIA), is founded to manufacture spares and parts for the GAIA locomotives.
In 1958 the Ministry of Transport of Argentina signed an agreement with Fiat Ferroviaria to acquire 210 brand-new railcars. Those machines were formed by 2 units powered by a FIAT diesel engine at 660 HP. The railcars could reach speeds of 115 km/h. Their low weight made them suitable to run on any railway line. The vehicles also had two driver cabins, one on each end of the car, which reduced the time of manoeuvres at termini stations, particularly in urban services.
Railcars were built in the FIAT factories of Turin, Decauville and Córdoba. Although the first railcars were manufactured in Italy and France, most of them were made in Argentina, in a factory specially designed for that assignment located in Ferreyra, Córdoba and named "Materfer".
Some versions stated that the 7131 was inspired on the 1934 Pioneer Zephyr, a diesel-powered railroad train formed of railroad cars permanently articulated together with Jacobs bogies, built by the Budd Company in 1934 for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q), commonly known as the Burlington. The train featured extensive use of stainless steel, was originally named the Zephyr, and was meant as a promotional tool to advertise passenger rail service in the United States.
In 1962, the 7131, a railcar manufactured by FIAT Concord, made its debut in the Villa Ballester–Zárate and Victoria–Capilla del Señor sections of General Mitre Railway, then managed by Ferrocarriles Argentinos. Those light cars replaced Ganz Works railcars that had been run on those lines since 1938.[3]
In 1964, 27 coaches built by Aerfer, a subsidiary of FIAT Ferroviaria, were added to the Belgrano Norte line. Four years later, the fleet was expanded with the addition of 20 coaches which replaced the old ones made in Tafí Viejo. In 1975 Materfer supplied more coaches (named "FIAT III") for the line.[3]
Later years and bankruptcy
During the 1980s Materfer began to export its products, and the factory also manufactured a line of diesel locomotives, named "Transfer".
In the early to mid 1980s, the company built the Fiat-Materfer underground cars for use on the Buenos Aires Underground. The intention of these trainsets was to create a standardised fleet for the Underground network - which had a diverse range of rolling stock at the time - in order to reduce the maintenance costs associated with having many different models, and also to replace the ageing rolling stock of the network.[4] Ultimately, only enough of these were built to service just Line E rather than the entire network. Nevertheless, they have served many years on the network and today they are used as temporary stand-ins in lines where newer rolling stock is arriving, and is thus being slowly phased-out of the network.[5][6]
The lack of maintenance of the FIAT 7131 coaches put some of them out of service, so in 1987 Ferrocarriles Argentinos looked to Materfer to provide light railcars for the Zárate and Capilla del Señor branches. The company bought 8 units made by Materfer and soon nicknamed them Pitufos (a Spanish translation for "
