Linha do Tua

Coordinates: 41 ° 12 ′ 14.2 "  N , 7 ° 25 ′ 15.3"  W.

Tua – Bragança
Route length:	134 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Legend Route from Pocinho 0.0 Tua Route to Ermesinde 1.4 Viaduto das Presas 1.5 Túnel das Presas 4.3 Tralhariz 4.4 Tunnel de Tralhariz 5.5 Túnel das Fragas Más I 5.6 Viaduto das Fragas Más 5.7 Túnel das Fragas Más II 7.6 Castanheiro 9.2 Tunnel da Falcoeira 11.3 Ponte de Paradela 13.4 Santa Luzia 15.6 São Lourenço 17.8 Tralhão 21.2 Brunheda 25.1 Codeçais 26.6 Ponte da Cabreira 29.2 Ponte do Vieiro 29.3 Abreiro 33.9 Ribeirinha 37.8 Vilarinho 41.8 Ponte 41.9 Cachão 45.0 Cheeky 45.8 Ponte da Carvalha 46.2 Túnel de Frechas 48.5 Latadas 54.1 Mirandela Mirandela-Piaget Tarana Túnel de Mirandela Viaduto de Mirandela Jacques Delors 55.2 São Sebastião Pontao de Mirandela Jean Monet 58.2 Carval sharks Ponte de Carvalhais 61.1 Vilar da Ledra 65.3 Avantos Ponte da Assureira 67.2 Romeu 74.1 Cortiços Ponte de Carrasqueiros Ponte de Grijó 78.9 Grijó 82.8 Macedo de Cavaleiros 85.3 Castelãos 89.3 Azibo Ponte do Azibo 91.8 Salselas 94.6 Valdrez 96.9 Sendas 99.3 Vila Franca 100.8 Chaos 101.8 Fermentãos 104.6 Salsas National road IP4 Vertex 850 m 110.3 Rossas Tunnel de Arufe Túnel de Sortes 117.1 Sortes Túnel de Remisquedo 119.8 Remisquedo Ponte de Remisquedo 122.1 Rebordãos Ponte de Rebordãos 125.6 Mosca National road IP4 Ponte da Coxa I left old route until 1960 Viaduto da Coxa Bridge over the Bragança train station left old route until 1960 133.8 Bragança

The Linha do Tua , in German the Tua railway line , is a meter-gauge branch line in northern Portugal that runs along the Tua River . Originally it connected the city of Tua with Bragança , but due to various closures it now only leads to Carvalhais .

Due to various accidents , the railway line came into the focus of the Portuguese media, especially in 2007 and 2008. The route is to be dismantled in favor of several dams, against which, however, citizen protests are directed and about which the director Jorge Pelicano made a highly acclaimed documentary. The line was operated by the only Portuguese municipal railway operator Metropolitano Ligeiro de Mirandela until December 14, 2018 .

history

construction

Train the Metropolitano de Ligeiro Mirandela at the station Tua

Line of the Linha do Tua at Codeçais station

The history of Linha do Tua goes back to 1878, when two different designs competed for the construction of a line in the Tua Valley. While the engineers João Dias, Bernabé Roxo and Sousa Brandão advocated a stretch on the right bank, engineer António Pinheiro proposed a design on the left bank of the Tua. Originally, a very long stretch from the Douro to Zamora, Spain, was planned, but this was soon abandoned due to the impassable landscape. Ultimately, Pinheiro won the competition for the new route with his design.

On January 11, 1883, at the same time the line Linha do Douro, running from west to east, reached the city ​​of Tua , the city of Mirandela asked King Luís I to approve the line. This could count on the support of the Porto Chamber of Commerce , which wanted above all to expand the transport routes in the Douro Valley - to the detriment of the connections further south, such as the routes to Aveiro and Vilar Formoso . On April 26, 1883, the king signed the law calling for a competition to build the Linha do Tua, which the Companhia Nacional de Caminhos-de-Ferro (CN) won in December 1883. The CN had also built the Linha do Dão line (between Santa Comba Dão and Viseu ). A year later, on October 16, 1884, construction began on the Linha do Tua near the town of Mirandela.

The first kilometers of the line were relatively easy to build from there, as the valley left enough space for the tracks . The CN only had to dig a tunnel, the Túnel de Frechas , and build a small bridge, the Ponte de Cachão . Only after Abreiro did the construction project become more complicated. The engineer Dinis da Mota, who worked for the CN, left an eye-catcher in the rugged landscape of the Tua Valley with his numerous engineering structures. Behind Brunheda, Dinis da Mota created numerous other engineering structures. The last ten kilometers to Tua are the most complex of the whole route, with two viaducts and a bridge ( Presas , Fragas Más and Paradela ) and five tunnels ( Presas , Tralhariz , Fragas Más I and II and Falcoeira ).

business

The Linha do Tua between Tua and Mirandela (km 54.1) was inaugurated on September 27, 1887. The first train, pulled by an E81 locomotive and named Trás-os-Montes , was driven by the engineer Dinis da Mota himself. In Mirandela, the largest narrow-gauge station in the whole country, other Portuguese personalities awaited the train, including King Luís I. On September 29, 1887, the Companhia Nacional de Caminhos-de-Ferro began scheduled operations . In further steps, the opening took place in sections up to Bragança (km 133.8), which was connected on December 31, 1906.

After the CP had closed the Mirandela – Braganca section on December 15, 1991, traffic was severely restricted in 1992 and a closure was imminent, the Metropolitano Ligeiro de Mirandela took over part of the operation of the line in 1995 and the whole in 2001. On July 28, 1995, the Metropolitano Ligeiro de Mirandela, a municipal company of the city of Mirandela, resumed operations on the Mirandela– Carvalhais section (km 58.2).

After several changes in responsibility, the “Metro de Mirandela” was most recently responsible as a railway company for the entire operational management from Tua to Carvalhais, in the Tua – Mirandela section on behalf of CP. The route maintenance between Tua and Mirandela, however, was the responsibility of the Portuguese railway infrastructure company REFER and between Mirandela and Carvalhais the "Metro de Mirandela". The Movimento Civico pela Linha do Tua initiative , which has the support of the city of Mirandela, has been campaigning for the maintenance of the line since October 2006 and calls for the renewed use of the trains that were previously hauled by locomotives. Some of their coaches are parked in Tua station. The associated narrow-gauge locomotives of the 9020 series from Alstom have now been sold abroad.

After two serious accidents, since August 26, 2008, the CP has set up a rail replacement service with taxis on the "Linha do Tua" . So until 2018 only passenger traffic on the section of the Metropolitano Ligeiro de Mirandela between Carvalhais, Mirandela and Cachão (traffic on behalf of the CP) will take place. In autumn 2018, four pairs of trains ran here every day.

In the north the tracks end today in Carvalhais, north of it to the end point Bragança the tracks have meanwhile been dismantled. In the southern section, too, the tracks have now been removed from Tua to Brunheda station. This section has now largely sunk into the floods of the new reservoir after the dam at Foz do Tua was completed in 2016.

A tourism concept plans to renovate the route between Mirandela and Brunheda by 2019 and to use steam locomotive-hauled tourist trains from Mirandela. In Mirandela and Brunheda, new turntables for turning the steam locomotives were built. Between Brunheda and the dam, the transport is to take place by boat on the new reservoir. The last stretch from the dam to Tua station on the Douro line is to be bridged with buses.

The Metropolitano Ligeiro de Mirandela had become an island route with no connection to the rest of the railway network and was the last remaining of the four narrow-gauge railways that once started from the Douro. This is not officially mentioned by the State Railways in the timetable books or in the electronic information system; the Mirandelas city administration published its own timetable for it.

Accidents

In its entire history, the "Linha do Tua" never had a negative impact due to major accidents. It was not until February 2007 that a railcar derailed due to a damage to the superstructure at km 6 and fell 60 meters deep into the Tua gorge. There were three fatalities. There followed an accident with a handcar and another derailment without major damage. On August 22, 2008, another railcar derailed. One death and numerous injuries were the result.

After the first accident, the line was repaired again after a long time and operations resumed. The route between Tua and Cachao (km 41.9) has been closed since the second serious accident. The final report on the last accident identified both inadmissible limit values ​​for the height differences between the rails and a dangerously unbalanced suspension of the vehicles under load (LRV2000 narrow-gauge railcars) as the cause. The vehicles were then denied operational safety.

vehicles

Locomotive-hauled wagon trains were originally used on the route. In 1980, the then Yugoslavia ten diesel railcars of the series 802 of there recently decommissioned Dalmatian - Montenegrin bought 760 mm narrow gauge network and mm in Portugal to 1000 umgespurt . These vehicles were in use until 1994. They have since been sold: 2007 three sets to the State Railways of Mozambique and three to Peru , where the vehicles for since October 2009, railway companies Inca Rail to Aguas Calientes ( Machu Picchu are) in use.

literature

• Herbert Stemmler: The narrow-gauge railways in northern Portugal . In: Wolfgang Messerschmidt (Ed.): Locomotive magazine . No. 68 . Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, W. Keller & Co. , 1974, ISSN  0458-1822 , p. 372-384 .

Web links

Commons : Linha do Tua  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• www.linhadotua.pt (Portuguese)
• http://www.alinhadotua.com/ (English)
• Video at youtube.com
• 100 years of the arrival of trains in Bragança (PDF file; 515 kB)
• Photo documentation of a trip on the Linha do Tua (PDF file; 2.41 MB)
• Linha do Tua photo gallery

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IBSE Telegram 216, November 2008, p. 7.
2. ↑ SEV
3. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Website of the CP with the Linha do Tua timetable ( memento of the original of September 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 639 kB) 
5. ↑ http://www.ambientemagazine.com/edp-comecou-a-arrancar-a-linha-do-tua/
6. ↑ http://www.a-nossa-energia.edp.pt/centros_produtores/empreendimento.php?item_id=80
7. ↑ https://www.jornalnordeste.com/noticia/tua-express-ja-desperta-curiosidade-em-mirandela
8. ↑ http://www.fineart-portugal.com/photo/261146/brunheda
9. ↑ Metro para a partir de segunda para avançar plano de mobilidade do Tua (Portuguese) . In: Notícias ao Minuto , December 12, 2018. Accessed January 20, 2019. 
10. ↑ http://www.valetua.pt/plano-de-mobilidade/
11. ↑ Timetable of the Metropolitano Ligeiro de Mirandela on the Cachão-Mirandela-Carvalhais route
12. ↑ Helmut Petrovisch: JŽ series MV-2: From Sarajevo to Machu Picchu . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 1/2010, p. 49.