Line A (Buenos Aires Underground)

Line A
Plaza Miserere station.
Overview
Termini	Plaza de Mayo San Pedrito
Stations	16
Service
Type	Rapid transit
System	Buenos Aires Underground
Operator(s)	Metrovías
Rolling stock	200 Series
Daily ridership	258,000 (2018)[1] 2.87%[2]
History
Opened	1913
Technical
Line length	10.8 km (6.7 mi)
Character	Underground
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in)
Electrification	Catenary 1500 V DC
Route map Legend 0 km 0 mi Plaza de Mayo 0.1 km 0.1 mi service tunnel 0.3 km 0.2 mi Perú 0.7 km 0.4 mi Piedras 1.0 km 0.6 mi Lima 1.4 km 0.9 mi Sáenz Peña 2.0 km 1.2 mi Congreso 2.5 km 1.6 mi Pasco │ Pasco Sur 2.7 km 1.7 mi Alberti Norte │ Alberti 3.3 km 2.1 mi Plaza Miserere 4.0 km 2.5 mi Loria 4.7 km 2.9 mi Castro Barros 5.5 km 3.4 mi Río de Janeiro 6.2 km 3.9 mi Acoyte 6.7 km 4.2 mi Primera Junta 7.0 km 4.3 mi Polvorín Workshop 7.4 km 4.6 mi Puán 8.3 km 5.2 mi Carabobo 9.0 km 5.6 mi San José de Flores 9.7 km 6 mi San Pedrito 10.8 km 6.7 mi San Pedrito depot This diagram: view talk edit

Line A is the oldest line of the Buenos Aires Underground. Opened to the public on 1 December 1913, it was the first underground line in South America, the Southern Hemisphere and the Spanish-speaking world. It made Buenos Aires the 13th city in the world to have an underground transport service. The line stretches 9.8 km (6.1 mi) from Plaza de Mayo and San Pedrito and runs under the full length of the Avenida de Mayo and part of the Avenida Rivadavia, and is used by 258,000 people per day.^[1]

On the first day of public service (18 December 1913), it carried 220,000 passengers.^[3] Line A used the cars used at its inauguration for just under a century. These cars were built by Belgian company La Brugeoise starting in 1913 and were refurbished in 1927 when their wooden structure was modified for underground-only use.

A peculiarity of the original "pantograph" cars on the "underground tramway" was that until 1926 they had both low doors at the ends for boarding from the street and high doors in the middle for loading from platforms in the tunnel. For this reason, Line A might also be considered the continent's first "light rail subway".^[4] The old wooden cars were removed in 2013, and replaced by modern cars.

The line has been extended twice since the completion of the original line in 1914, with the most recent two-station extension of San José de Flores and San Pedrito entering service on 27 September 2013.