Metropolitano Ligeiro de Mirandela
The Metropolitano de Ligeiro Mirandela, SA , often only Metro de Mirandela to German Light rapid transit Mirandela , is a municipal company in the Portuguese city of Mirandela based in Mirandela. Metropolitano Ligeiro de Mirandela operated the passenger traffic on the narrow-gauge railway line Linha do Tua between Tua and Carvalhais . Operations were temporarily suspended on December 14, 2018.
The state railway company Comboios de Portugal (CP) tried in the 1990s to get rid of the operation on the small, less frequented branch lines in the north of Portugal. As early as 1992, the CP had severely restricted the operation of the Linha do Tua line . Originally the entire 133.8 long line between Tua and Bragança was in operation, since 1992 only the Tua – Mirandela section with a length of 54 kilometers has been operated.
In order to save the line from being completely shut down, the city council of Mirandela decided to set up its own municipal company in order to resume operations on the disused line. The original goal was to give the students of the university in Carvalhais easier access from Mirandela. Founded in 1995, the city administration had the four-kilometer stretch between Mirandela and Carvalhais provisionally renovated with financial support from the European Union and at the same time built three new stops ( Tarana , Jacques Delors and Jean Monet ) in addition to the two previously existing ones ( São Sebastião and Carvalhais ) . The Metro de Mirandela then only ran this section, while the state railway CP operated the Tua – Mirandela section. CP owned and still owns ten percent of the company, the rest is owned by the city administration.
In 2001, the company also took over the concession of the Comboios de Portugal state railway to operate the rest of the route between Tua and Mirandela. From 2005 the Metro de Mirandela operated continuous trains between Tua and Carvalhais. While the Tua – Mirandela route was operated under concession from the CP - the CP is actually the operator and only leases the operation - the Metro de Mirandela operates the remaining section on its own account. This is not officially mentioned by the State Railways in the timetable books or in the electronic information system; the Mirandelas city administration publishes its own timetable for it.
After two accidents, traffic to Tua was stopped in October 2008. There were only pairs of trains to Cachão, there you have to change to a taxi in the rail replacement service .
vehicles
The Metropolitano Ligeiro de Mirandela owned four diesel railcars of the type 9500 , which were converted from Yugoslav railcars of the 802 series . CP previously used these on its own on the Linha do Corgo and Linha do Tua lines ; they were converted in the Guifões railway workshop . While the CP vehicles always drove in red - the typical color for narrow-gauge traffic - the trains of the Metro de Mirandela are light green. The original four vehicles were each given the name of a European city: Bruxelas ( Brussels ), Lisboa ( Lisbon ), Estrasburgo ( Strasbourg ) and Paris .
On February 12, 2006, an accident occurred near the Castanheiro stop , in which the Bruxelas vehicle suffered considerable damage and three passengers died. The vehicle was scrapped, so the company currently only has three vehicles.
Individual evidence
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Decreto-Lei n ° 24/95 of February 8, 1995 (PDF; 207 kB), published in the Diário da República
- ↑ Timetable of the Metropolitano Ligeiro de Mirandela on the Cachão-Mirandela-Carvalhais route
- ^ Website of the CP with the Linha do Tua timetable