Abstract of book chapter in Ferrocarril y ciudad (2002) This chapter is the revised version of a paper presented at an international conference in Aranjuez (Spain) in 2001. It is part of a series of scholarly studies by specialists on the impact of railways in various major cities in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. With a chronological and issue-oriented approach that takes into account urban and demographic developments in the surrounding environment, it examines the role and limitations of railway services in urban and suburban passenger transportation in Buenos Aires from the beginnings of the twentieth century to the eve of the structural neoliberal economic reforms carried out in Argentina during the 1990s.