Train station, Bauru, São Paulo, Brazil

The Bauru station is very big and it’s composed by three different stations, built at the beginning of the 20th century in order to serve three different railroads/company services (Noroeste, Sorocabana, Paulista). In 1939, with the completion of the huge new Noroeste station, which also encompassed the company’s offices, all departures and arrivals of the three railroads were centralized at this new station, and the buildings of Sorocabana and the old Noroeste have been divested.

The Noroeste station was considered the largest railway junction of Brazil, managing a huge passenger traffic, eventually ending in late 1995, when passenger trains were eliminated.
In fact during ’90s the passenger traffic progressively decreased and, when the new train service company (Novoeste) took over the traffic management in 1996, the situation didn’t get better. In 1999, the offices of the company moved away and the station felt into abandonment. Passenger trains to Bauru, in the former line of Paulista, reached the station for the last time on March 15, 2001.
The station, during those years, only served as a boarding platform and after that day, even nor for that. In mid 2010 the station building was bought by the municipality: hopefully they will do something for these buildings, but in January 2011 everything was still in the same situation.

Curiosity: Bauru is also the town where Pelé (famous football player) grew up and learned his football (soccer) skills. Pelé played for Bauru AC until 1956.

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