Federal government revives the "Pequi Express" project.

A cooperation agreement between the federal government, the Federal District and the state of Goiás is expected to be signed this Thursday (June 28th) to define the rules and initial studies, as well as the model for the concession and operation of the train line that will connect Brasília to Goiânia.
Governors Agnelo Queiroz (PT-DF) and Marconi Perillo (PSDB-GO) of Goiás, who have been seen together in newspaper headlines regarding the Cachoeira CPI, are expected to be together now for the signing of the agreement.

In September 2009, according to the newspaper Diário da Manhã, the Expresso Pequi project, in its high-speed train version, was budgeted at R$ 5 billion, and in its slower version, R$ 1 billion. All prices are from 2009. Now, according to reports from Sudeco, the government believes it is possible to execute the train project with R$ 600 million through a public-private partnership (PPP).

In addition to the costs, the government will face another major problem: a large lobby organized by bus manufacturers and owners of urban and intercity public transport companies. In terms of passenger volume, each train trip can represent up to 10 or 15 times the total number of passengers transported by bus. In other words, each train takes 10 to 15 buses out of circulation.

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There has been much talk about two train lines departing from Brasília: the first would utilize the existing line of the defunct Bandeirantes Train of the Federal Railway Network, privatized during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration. This would be a 70-kilometer line connecting the Brasília rail-road network and the city of Luziânia. The costs of the adaptation works are estimated at 70 million reais, and the line could serve an estimated population of between 800 and one million people living in the Southern Surroundings of the Federal District, Gama and Santa Maria, as well as Park Way, Núcleo Bandeirantes, Guará, and the Industrial and Supply Sector.

The second branch would involve the construction of a line approximately 200 km long, connecting Brasília to the capital of Goiás, with stops in the cities of Anápolis and Alexânia. This second line will be the subject of a cooperation agreement between the federal government, the Federal District, and the state of Goiás.

The rail link between the two largest cities in the Midwest has been envisioned for a long time and has even earned the nickname "Pequi Express," alluding to the fruit widely used in Goian cuisine. During the 2004 election period, the proposal gained traction in Joaquim Roriz's candidacy. In concrete terms, it only resulted in a series of international trips by politicians and technicians to countries where similar projects have already been implemented. In 2009, in Beijing, China, the then governor of Goiás, Alcides Rodrigues, and the president of Valec at the time, José Francisco das Neves, known as Juquinha, announced the implementation of a high-speed train (TAV) with Chinese technology. The journey would take 1 hour and 30 minutes at a speed of 180 km per hour.

According to the promise made at that time, the train should have already entered operation this year. The following year, in 2010, the president of Valec again announced the launch of construction works for the TAV railway. At the beginning of her government, President Dilma Rousseff ordered Valec to suspend a series of railway project tenders due to suspected overpricing.

Now, the recently revived Superintendency for the Development of the Central-West Region (Sudeco), linked to the Ministry of National Integration, is committed to the project. "Studies by IBGE and IPEA indicate that by 2027 this region will reach 20 million inhabitants and will be the second largest conurbation in Brazil," states Marcelo Dourado, superintendent of Sudeco, to justify the execution of the project. Currently, the BR-060 highway axis already houses approximately seven million people.

The new version should no longer be a high-speed train (TAV), but rather a mixed line that accommodates both cargo and passengers. According to Dourado, the Central-West region concentrates one of the largest GDPs in the country, "hence the importance of the train for transporting cargo and passengers," explains Dourado. Therefore, the average speed of the new Expresso Pequi should drop from 180 km/h to an average of up to 150 km/h, and intermediate stations may be created depending on demand.

The construction of this line should trigger a real estate boom along the Brasília-Goiânia axis, with the emergence of new urban clusters or the densification of existing ones. As happens in many cities abroad with regional trains, the middle class chooses to live with more comfort and space in more distant locations, but with high-quality rail transport. Therefore, knowing who owns the land through which the train will pass becomes highly strategic. It is even possible, as happened with the Rio-São Paulo high-speed train, that speculators have already bought up many plots of land before construction even begins.

In the 2009 version, the train would depart from the Rodoferroviária station, located at the intersection of the Eixo Monumental and the EPIA highway, but it would not reach the center of Goiânia; instead, it would reach the peripheral neighborhood of Vila Matinha, on the banks of the GO-010 highway. This could be a negative point for the project. As mentioned before, in major European cities, the great advantage of traveling by train is that it allows people to reach city centers, unlike airports, which are usually further away.