The Rosario Oeste Railway railway station is a former train station

Train station

A train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...

 in Rosario

Rosario

Rosario is the largest city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It is located northwest of Buenos Aires, on the western shore of the Paraná River and has 1,159,004 residents as of the ....

, province

Provinces of Argentina

Argentina is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city...

 of Santa Fe

Santa Fe Province

The Invincible Province of Santa Fe, in Spanish Provincia Invencible de Santa Fe , is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco , Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero...

, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

. It is located in the west of the city, on the junction of Paraná St. and 9 de Julio St.

The site of the station was originally only a stop for the line that led west to Córdoba

Córdoba, Argentina

Córdoba is a city located near the geographical center of Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina after the federal capital Buenos Aires, with...

, operated by the Córdoba Central Railway

Córdoba Central Railway

The Córdoba Central Railway was a British-owned railway company, founded in 1887, that operated a 1960 km metre gauge...

 company. It was established in 1917 under the name Kilómetro 302 (i.e. 302 km measured from Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

). In 1939 the State Railway Administration renamed it to Rosario Oeste. During the mid-1940s the existing building (a wooden construction) was demolished and the new station was built, in a modern rationalist style (unlike other, older stations which followed British or French models). Rosario Oeste was designated as the local stop of all meter gauge long-distance trains that arrived in Rosario, avoiding the complicated process of entering and backing up at Rosario Central Córdoba Station.
In 1949 the government of Juan Perón

Juan Perón

Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...

 nationalized

Nationalization

Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...

 the railways and attempted to optimize them. The Central Córdoba Railway, which had been taken over by the Argentine government in 1939, was now merged with other companies into the Ferrocarril General Manuel Belgrano

Ferrocarril General Manuel Belgrano

Ferrocarril General Manuel Belgrano , named after the Argentine politician and military leader Manuel Belgrano, was one of the six state-owned Argentine railway companies formed after President Juan Perón's nationalisation of the railway network in 1948...

, which concentrated all of the passenger services at Rosario Oeste, closing down other termini.
In September 1960 the popular uprising known as the Rosariazo

Rosariazo

The Rosariazo was a protest movement that consisted in demonstrations and strikes, in Rosario, , between May and September 1969, during the military dictatorial rule of de facto President General Juan Carlos Onganía...

caused grave damages to the transport infrastructure of the city. Rosario Oeste Station was looted

Looting

Looting —also referred to as sacking, plundering, despoiling, despoliation, and pillaging—is the indiscriminate taking of goods by force as part of a military or political victory, or during a catastrophe, such as during war, natural disaster, or rioting...

 and set on fire; it was the only station to be rebuilt later.
As the Argentine railway system declined (most of the remaining passenger services being cancelled in 1977, and the cargo services privatized and downsized in the 1990s), the station, like most others, fell into abandon.

Rosario Oeste was intended from the beginning to be a convenient stop for long-distance trains, located in the periphery so that trains would not have to enter the central part of the city. As such, it is usually considered again for this role every time that a possible revamping of the railway system is discussed. In 2006, the municipality announced the site of Rosario Oeste was a likely alternative to build the terminus of the projected Buenos Aires–Rosario–Córdoba high-speed train

Buenos Aires-Rosario-Córdoba high-speed railway

The Buenos Aires–Rosario–Córdoba high-speed railway is a project designed to link the Argentine cities of Buenos Aires, Rosario and Córdoba through a high-speed rail network. The plan, announced by President Néstor Kirchner during a press conference at the Casa Rosada on 26 April 2006, would be...

, as it was "accessible and presented low urbanistic impact". The official Urban Plan for the period 2007–2017, however, shifted the site to the railway maneuver area known as Patio Parada

Patio Parada

Patio Parada is a rail yard in Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It is an important part of the railway system of the city and has been designed as the future site of a multi-modal public transport terminus. Formerly belonging to the Ferrocarril General Bartolomé Mitre company, it is now...

, closer to the city center (west of Rosario Norte Station

Rosario Norte Station

The Rosario Norte Railway Station is a train station in Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It is located on Aristóbulo del Valle Avenue, at the junction with Callao St., north of the city center, in the neighbourhood known as Barrio Pichincha....

).