1The city of Araraquara, one of the entrances to the western region of the state of São Paulo, has had a railway infrastructure since 1885. This has enabled territorial consolidation and industrial development. The development of this infrastructure allowed the extension of the Estrada de Ferro Araraquarense (Lourencetti, Oliveira 2018) through the unknown lands of São Paulo. All existing urban centres have established a similar relationship between railway infrastructure and urban expansion. But with the development of highways, the role of this important industrial heritage has diminished; in Araraquara, the urban railways are undergoing a process of deactivation, which will soon scrap the entire infrastructure. Therefore, in order to preserve the railway memory and reintegrate it into the urban network without making it disappear from the city, certain initiatives need to be launched.
Fig.1. The railway system of the State of São Paulo
The first Brazilian railway was built in Magé, Rio de Janeiro, in 1835. It was not until the 1850s that the tracks went to the state of São Paulo, reaching Araraquara in 1885.
Sources : Rotas-Mapa Ferroviario do Ministério dos Transportes, Porto e Aviação Civil and IBGE. Drafted by the author
- 1 This paper was based on the master thesis of the author, which was developed in parallel to the mas (...)
2As such, this paper aims to present the development of an inventory for Araraquara, which can highlight the railway participation in the city progression and revalue it to the city inhabitants1. The cataloguing was made as a master thesis (Lourencetti 2015), which got as a referential the french works, who were pioneers in the field of railway inventory. Their first railway catalogue dates from 1984 (Polino 2007). Besides that, many french cities turned to be regional capitals after the railway arrival. Araraquara railway did not receive the same upgrade as the french cities, but to understand the importance given to them by the railway infrastructure makes clear the capacity that an industrial heritage has of improving the urban dynamics. Thus, the attempt to spread the knowledge about the railway influence in Araraquara, through an industrial inventory, aims to change the fate of this industrial heritage.
Fig.2. The Railway Station of Araraquara
Araraquara's first railway station began operating in 1885. During the 20th century, its building was replaced and has survived to the present day. Its last passenger train arrived in 2001. In 2005, the station building was declared a municipal heritage site. It currently houses the Francisco Aurelino de Araújo Railway Museum.
Photo taken by the author (2016)
« In the passenger transport, private car dominates the modal shares in the developed countries, while rail and bus are relatively more important in the developing countries. » (Silva 2013)
3The development of rail transport has had a great impact on the progress of industrialisation in many countries. In Europe, this means of transport has seen its tracks linked to other transport networks, giving rise to an intermodal system, reinforcing the importance of the railways and attracting investment to improve its technology. On the contrary, Brazilian railways have been neglected after the increase in the use of motorways. Passenger trains in the western region of São Paulo have disappeared, and the railway system has become exclusively freight transport. However, even so, rail is not the most widely used means of transport, accounting for 42% of the Brazilian freight (Anonymous [1] 2015).
4The first Brazilian railway was built in Magé, Rio de Janeiro, in 1835, but it was not until almost fourteen years later (1858) that the tracks arrived in the state of São Paulo. At the beginning of its construction, the private sector invested in it, with the government having to open concessions to facilitate the work. As a result, the railways were taken over by private interests, giving rise to monopolies by large landowners. This same type of management was used in the United States, so their first territories interconnected by the railway were consolidated in the image of Brazil. An example is the North American transcontinental railway, which had developed certain urban centres without any prior plans, generating more spending than economic impetus (Drummond 2013).
5In France, the process was different. Although the country was not a pioneer in the creation of railways like England, the country developed this infrastructure in both directions, strategic planning and technology, becoming an important model in these areas. Initially, the private sector, specifically the mining sector, started to develop this means of transport, but after a while the government established different uses for the train. Thus, the École des Ponts et Chaussées became responsible for inspecting all railway planning in order to balance collective and private interests, integrating the different means of transport. Until now, the French railway has attracted new investments, produced new technologies and has become a reference for studies on the use and preservation of railway heritage.
6As already mentioned, on contrast, the Brazilian railroad has been shrinking over time. The government has neglected this infrastructure and has given more resources to the development of paved roads. As Brazil is highly dependent on the external market, all international crises have had an influence on the expansion of the railway. Around 1930, prices for maintenance and construction of new railways became very high, while the US sold its technology for the production of cars and highways at low prices. The government therefore switched to this new means of transportation. The Estrada de Ferro Araraquarense developed at the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, the railway was the main tool of territorial consolidation. Its progress was then slowed down by the development of motorways, until the motorway infrastructure finally prevailed.
7The railway took to Araraquara many immigrants and industries. When the station was built, its influence was evident, but even after the decay of its use, the city still receives new investments and infrastructures because of the railway and its strategic location in the State of São Paulo. So, Araraquara and its whole region had the rail tracks as the forerunner of the industrialization. As Araraquara, São José do Rio Preto, Mirassol, Tanabi and Votuporanga, became regional capitals after the arrival of the railway. All the urban centers already existed, but their potential was amplified after the train connected them to the rest of the State. In France, Lille, Lyon and Marseille in France, were already big regional centers before the railway arrival but, as much as the Brazilian cities, they dramatically progressed after the interconnection made by the new infrastructure.
8The biggest difference in the urban field is that in France, the stations were located in the center of the urban grid, as part of its dynamics, while in the region of Estrada de Ferro Araraquarense, the stations were located away from the urban limits, and therefore they created a second urban center in all these “bouches de la brousse” (Monbeig 1998). However, the railway continued not making part of the urban planning, becoming a paradox, an isolated area in the middle of the urban grid. Thus, after the decrease of the use of the train, the area became neglected and a passing place, as a barrier, which divides the city in two parts, while in France, even after some crises, the government continued to instigate the use of the railway in the mentioned cities, connecting it to various means of transportation, and improving their buildings to be more than a passing place. Giving them new functions, transforming them into recreation and leisure places.
Fig.3. A perspective of the railway line crossing the city of Araraquara
Araraquara station was built outside the urban network, but over time the station has exerted a considerable attraction on industries and other types of urban services, which has led to the development of infrastructure in the surrounding area. As a result, the railway became an urban barrier, dividing the city into two parts.
Photo taken by Ciro Bertolucci (2016)
9Currently, a railway detour was built in Araraquara, which will result in the total deactivation of the urban train tracks. The used railway remnants will join the part of the infrastructure that is already a place of negligence and high criminality. Consequently, to spread the knowledge of this railway was faced as a challenge and a necessity of making the inhabitants to understand that this industrial heritage is part of their identity and possesses many kinds of urban potential. It will not be possible to maintain its old use and increase it as it has been done in France, but the creation of an industrial inventory, which can highlight the importance of the preservation and reintegration of this infrastructure, aims to improve the attention given to the railway heritage, and to put in evidence its importance in the design of an urban planning. Therefore, in this field, the French pioneering showed to be really helpful.
10The railway arrived in Araraquara at the end of the 19th century, in the pre-industrial era, when the concept of "urban heritage" was introduced as a response to the concern about layering caused by the modernization of cities. As a result, many discussions took place to define a way of preserving and conserving old urban centers without stopping the development of cities.
11The first action to preserve the urban heritage was the Charter of Athens created in 1931, which focused more on the building as an isolated monument. It laid down rules on how buildings should be preserved and restored, even if their surroundings could not conceal the importance and characteristics of the buildings. The Charter was drafted as a guide for all nations, giving each of them equal responsibility for the preservation of the world's heritage. A few years later, in 1933, urban experts began to propose a more rational and functional urban planning. The CIAM (Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne) therefore revised the first Charter of Athens. From then on, the cities were considered as a whole that had to be preserved. One of the first things taken into consideration to preserve a building was sanitation, in addition to the fact that the urban changes envisaged around it had to preserve at least part of the old urban design.
12The concept of industrial Heritage was soon established after the concern about the cities. It originated from an article written by Michael Rix in 1955 (Anonymous [2] 2015). The article dealt with ‘industrial archaeology’ but used the term 'industrial heritage' in its title, and eventually the term became a new field of study based on the reconstruction of production techniques over the course of history. In Brazil, the first group to protect a manufacturing technique was created on 1 June 1975 (Rodrigues 2012), under the name of NRC (Centro Nacional de Referência Cultural), and was coordinated by the federal government and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
13Railway heritage became a global concern after UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) took note of a research by Anthony Coulls (senior curator at the National Railway Museum in York since 1988) entitled "Railway a World Heritage Sites". For example, in 1998 (Costa 2013), the first railway to be classified as a World Heritage Site was the Austrian Semmering Railway. Railway heritage could be classified according to its infrastructure, as a monument of engineering, management, working techniques, technology or socio-economic influences or several of them at the same time.
14In France, the railway had begun to be included in the national inventory ten years before the first railway became a heritage asset. The inventory does not only concern the railways that can be considered as world or national heritage, but it also provides an understanding of the influences of the railways on the development of the country:
- 2 LOHR, Evelyne, QUÉVAL, Mélanie. « La ligne des coquetiers (1875-2006). De Bondy à Aulnay, un chemin (...)
« L’étude du terrain entreprise par l’Inventaire général, précisément dans ces années, a fait évoluer cette classification en ce qui concerne les chemins de fer au vu de l’imbrication des réseaux ferroviaires dans le tissu industriel et de l’influence des chemins de fer dans la localisation des activités industrielles2. »
- 3 The group is internationally known as “The theoretical and technical knowledge on the configuration (...)
15In Brazil, railway heritage became an issue of concern between 2000 and 2002, when the RFFSA (Federal Railway Net Limited Company) produced a catalogue entitled Inventário de Bens Móveis Históricos, which included 14,785 objects now kept by some railway museums, municipalities and entities. Then, in 2007, by Law 11.483, the IPHAN (Institute of National Historical and Artistic Heritage) created a specific category for railways, which led to another survey with 6.000 buildings, the Inventário de Conhecimento do Patrimônio Cultural Ferroviário (Anonymous [3] 2014). More specific studies have started to appear. Between 2006 and 2009, by a group of professors from UNESP (Universidade Estadual Paulista "Júlho de Mesquita Filho")/Bauru called SITU3. The group began research in the cities of the "pioneer fringe" of the State of São Paulo in order to collect materials that could be used to reconstruct the entire urban and transport evolution of each city of four railway lines: Sorocabana, Paulista, Araraquarense and Noroeste do Brazil, which served as the basis for the current inventory.
16To understand the relationship between the development of industries and the railways, it is necessary to understand the relationship between the railways and coffee, the main Brazilian product between the 19th and 20th centuries. Coffee arrived in the State of São Paulo in 1836 (Barcellone 2009), through the Vale do Paraíba, the same region as the railway, but a few years earlier. Initially, the Estrada de Ferro Araraquarense region was developed by other crops, such as cattle and sugar cane plantation, but around 1870 (Pacheco 1988), when the railway was already close to the city of Araraquara, some small coffee plantations for domestic consumption began to be cultivated in the region.
17Mechanization began at the same time, which improved coffee production. Nevertheless, after the proclamation of the Republic in 1890, the autonomy of Brazilian entrepreneurs came to an end, and they were forced to use their coffee reserves to obtain credit from banks. On the other hand, the development of the railways also declined, without, however, the participation of the railways in the industrial economy being reduced as well. On the contrary, the devaluation of coffee meant that the railways accounted for 71% of Brazil's industrial economy in 1907 (Cano 1975).
18However, during the expansion of agriculture, the country faced a manual labor crisis because of the "Bill Arbedeen" law, which banned the slave trade and, as a result, increased the price of manual labor. Thus, a new social class emerged, the working class. In Araraquara, the need for workers was so great that in 1865 (Pacheco 1988), the town hall and the American consul decided to take measures to attract more immigrants. Thus, as happened in France in the 1830s (Agulhon 1983), the beginning of industrialization and a demographic explosion transformed the cities into a place of accumulation of wealth, which made the railways the distributors of their products.
19Araraquara obtained District status four years after the arrival of the train, in 1889. Many new districts and urban services were built, which helped to attract new industries. The inventory of industrial heritage highlights the participation of railway buildings in the urban network, the involvement of railway workers in the construction of many urban infrastructures, their role in the creation of new industries and even the influence of the railways in the insertion of industrial buildings in the urban network. Until 1945, industries surrounded the railway, after its decline and the improvement of motorways, industries started to be located closer to paved roads, as will be shown below.
20The proposed industrial inventory has been drawn up on the basis of an interdisciplinary analysis, which began with research into the railway progress in the State of São Paulo, its role in the economic framework, its decline, its relationship with the State and the development of Araraquara and its importance as industrial heritage. All these subjects were analysed in parallel with the work developed in France for the development and preservation of the railway, the aim being to have a properly referenced material that could provide a solid basis for the construction of a virtual museum. This multidisciplinary approach is very important in order to attract different types of public, who can initiate new research or use it as a guide for future projects.
21Thus, when creating the inventory, certain French stages were taken into account and some examples from their virtual catalogues, such the Mérimée and Palissy databases (see webography), served as a model. In the evolution of the French inventory, an important detail has been taken into consideration: at the beginning, catalogues in France did not use a description of the historical context of the objects, which today is added. Therefore, the proposed inventory had already included this element. Several physical museums, such as the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, which has a virtual exhibition to help users understand the progress of the transport network in France in an interesting and easy way, were analysed to bring different ideas to the design of the materials.
22The importance of the railways has become more and more evident in the course of research. Many urban infrastructures, such as a market and a stadium, have been linked to certain categories of workers or have been built by the railway company. These results led to the creation of an urban catalogue. A list of industries was organised by type of production with the mentoin of the year of arrival in the city of Araraquara when possible. For this purpose, certain industries were chosen to serve as a model for the creation of the inventory files. The files were classified according to some basic information such as name, inauguration date, actors, type of industry, a historical summary, location, current use and dated photos. The urban heritage catalogue included some of the buildings constructed by the railway companies and the main places in the city; as their files were organised in the same way as the industrial inventory, it allowed us to add those places that played a major role in urban design.
23The greatest attention was paid to the "location" item. To this end, a map was designed which was able to show the relationship between the growth of the city and the evolution of the railway. Thus, each reference map was associated with a different period of the railway and was painted in a different color. Subsequently, some of the catalogued industries were located in the map, which highlighted the influence of the location of the railway over the years.
Fig.4. The file proposed to structure an industrial inventory of Araraquara
The study of these files, after gathering all the information they required, made it clear that the railway played an important role in the industrialization and growth of Araraquara, due to the presence of its workers and the occupation of its surroundings by these industries and other urban services.
Elaborated by the author
24The inventory underlines that the railway is the main tool for territorial consolidation and the driving force behind the expansion of Araraquara. In addition, the catalogue of files presents the industries that no longer exist and others that have deteriorated. Thus, the industrial and urban inventories mean that the Estrada de Ferro de Araraquara is considered an important element of the city's identity, preserving a large part of the memory of the city which is still being developed. The dissemination of this knowledge can lead to the revitalization of areas at risk, which can improve the urban network and the life of the inhabitants. The Estrada de Ferro de Araraquara is only the beginning of a long journey through the west of the State of São Paulo.
« Depuis les années 1990, cependant, on voit venir un nombre assez significatif de notices idées sous la dénomination de “voie ferrée”, rendant compte d’études qui cherchent à appréhender le patrimoine du chemin de fer non pas en termes d’une accumulation d’édifices isolés – une gare qui n’en cache pas une autre – mais en termes des réseaux, avec des éléments reliés entre eux, de manière physique et organisationnelle, le long d’une voie ou d’un tronçon de voie. » (Smith 2009)
25The urban center of Araraquara was born before the arrival of the railway, as was generally the case in the Araraquarense region. In order to understand the contribution of the railway to urban development, it was necessary to understand the history of the city. A historiographical study presenting the urban context and the development of the industrial heritage makes it possible to highlight the challenges of mobility. The acceleration of development brought by the railway in the Brazilian case and in the French cities mentioned is undeniable; it is a heritage whose value goes beyond its own infrastructure, which makes the recognition of many other urban heritages a basis for enhancing the railway heritage.
26France, not only as the pioneer in the inventory field, preserved most part of its rail infrastructure. The importance given to it in some cities made it be part of the daily life and the urban grid improved. Their Plateforme d’observation des projets et des stratégies urbaines describes the railway length as a « nouveau rôle de ces équipements, à la fois porteurs de centralité, nouvelles portes urbaines, et accueils potentiels de services tertiaires, centres d’affaires et commerces » (Marie 2009 :161). As such, before Estrada de Ferro de Araraquara become a park of empty urban space and high criminality, the citizens need to understand its importance and potential as an urban constructor. Thus, to put in evidence the whole context of Estrada de Ferro Araraquarense, the city of Araraquara was the first approach. The Araraquara railway influences were collected, its importance was better understood, and the revaluation of this infrastructure was used as a kick-start to the recognition of the industrial heritage of São Paulo State, a field that should be deeper explored.