In response to his proposal to strengthen the train network and asking for respect for Juan Barrios, the president of the National Confederation of Freight Transportation (CNTC), Sergio Pérez, sent an open letter to the presidential candidate of Approve Dignity, Gabriel Boric.
One of the points that has been discussed in recent days is the applicant’s proposal to La Moneda to strengthen the country’s rail network, which has generated a conflict with the truckers. A few days ago, Sergio Pérez described Boric’s proposal as “unfair competition” and accused that “they want to replace Chile’s truckers with State Railways.”
The president of the CNTC returned to the charge and rebuked the Frente Amplio deputy, first acknowledging that “the campaign commitments made the railway policy become a national discussion.” But accusing that “the public took sides and in a certain way interprets that truckers are a privileged caste and that the only thing that moves us is to preserve a privilege.”
In this sense, they replied: “it is good to make it crystal clear that, if there is a privileged transport group, that is the rail mode, since in its genesis the Ministry of Transport generated unacceptable asymmetries for this segment.”
The truckers grouped in the national confederation point out that the trains “can operate by importing used equipment, without age limits, which are not subjected to any official and semi-annual review that certifies their mechanical and gas emission status.” And they assure that “the train carries out transport of dangerous loads without application of restrictions, specific requirements or permission to transfer, even when there are railroads near houses and towns.”
They defend that “there is no tonnage cap for their convoys, even when they cross over bridges built at the end of the 20th century.” And they point out that the trains “do not pay a cash toll for the use of tracks.”
They emphasize that “the master plan of the State Railways Company (EFE) is co-financed with resources from the subsidy law. These are the reasons and not others that make us say that there is a lack of knowledge of transport and its various modes.”
And finally they state that “the train and the trucks are different but complementary modes.”
The truckers grouped in the union “we only ask candidate Boric and the public for all respect for Juan Barrios, who gave his life to continue transporting the essential goods of our beloved homeland.”
It is worth mentioning that in the last presidential debate of Archi Gabriel Boric he maintained that “we are not going to accept blackmail of any kind, today, having all the possibilities to have a rail network that manages to connect parts that are very saturated in our country.”
They deepened their criticism and accused that dangerous freight trains do not have restrictions, nor “specific requirements or permission to move, even when there are railway lines adjacent to houses, towns and cities.”
They detail that the trains:
- They can operate by importing used equipment, with no age limit, which are not subject to any official and semi-annual review that certifies its mechanical and gas emission status.
- The train carries out transport of dangerous cargo without application of restrictions, specific requirements or permission to transfer, even when there are railway lines adjacent to houses and towns.
- There is no tonnage cap for their convoys, even when they cross over bridges built at the end of the 20th century.
- They do not pay a cash toll for the use of roads.
- Citizens should know that the “Master Plan” of the State Railways Company is co-financed with resources from the subsidy law.
