The entry of the railway network in the field of the national public heritage preservation

Abstract

This work deals with the preservation of the cultural assets of the Brazilian railroad, to reflect on the initiatives of the federal government implemented in the year 1980 and that lasted until half of the 1990s. This is the Program of Preservation of the Historical Heritage of Transportation (Preserve), which in 1986 was taken over by the Rede Ferroviária Federal S. A. with the creation of the Preservation of Historic Railway Heritage (Preserfe), which was extended and reconfigured until 1996. Through the structure and operation of both programs, it was possible to observe the journey of valuing the railway goods from historical monuments to cultural heritage. The research relies on the reading of scholarly works dedicated to the analysis of the question. It also had the study of the official documents of the two programs, as well as the analysis of the processes of listing by the Institute of National Historical and Artistic Heritage (Iphan) to present the dimension, contributions and impact in the field of protection of national assets. We observed that the programs represented the first systemic action focused on this patrimonial typology, contributing to the advance in conceptual terms and to the existing practices in the country until that moment. In addition, they brought to Iphan’s technical staff, in parallel to other demands of the society for the preservation of public goods, a different look and the need for revisions of the current modus operandi.