Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca

Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca
SFM diesel multiple unit in Manacor station
Route length:	77 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Legend 0.0 Estació Intermodal - Plaça Espanya 0.7 Jacint Verdaguer 1.3 Son Costa - Son Fortesa Metro de Palma 2.3 Son Fuster Depot 3.6 Verge de Lluc 4.0 Pont d'Inca 5.1 Pont d'Inca Nou 7.0 Polígon de Marratxí 8.3 Marratxí 9.6 Festival Park 14.4 Santa Maria Route to Felanitx (1897–1968) 18.4 Consell Route to Alaró (1881-1935) 21.9 Binissalem 25.3 Lloseta 28.6 Inca 33.5 Enllaç Enllaç junction 38.2 Llubí 42.4 Muro 46.0 Sa Pobla Alcúdia (planned new building) 42.4 Sineu 45.0 Sant Joan 53.1 Petra 64.0 Manacor Sant Llorenç Son Carrió Son Servera Artà

The Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca (SFM) operates the railway lines Palma – Inca – Manacor, Inca – Sa Pobla and the Metro de Palma . It is a state-owned railway company in the Spanish Balearic Islands , based in the capital Palma.

history

The first railway line on Mallorca between Palma and Inca was planned by the Mallorcan engineer Eusebi Estada i Sureda (1843-1917) and opened in February 1875. It was built predominantly with English material as a narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 914 mm equal to 3 English feet , which enabled the use of English steam locomotives and wagons that were already available at the time and thus kept costs low. In the following years, the other routes via Manacor to Artà , to Sa Pobla , from Santa Maria on the route Palma – Inca to Felanitx and from Palma to Santanyí were built. By 1977, however, all the Ferrocarriles de Mallorca routes were closed except for the Palma – Inca line.

DMUs of FEVE with sidecar (front) in Inca , 1990

Palma train station 2005, intermediate state after commissioning the railcars with high entrances

In 1994 the government of the Balearic Islands founded the current state company Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca . It took over the operation of the Palma – Inca line from the previous operator FEVE . Since then, the rolling stock has been modernized, the gauge has been changed to meter gauge and the route network has been expanded again. Following the existing line from Palma to Inca, the line to Sa Pobla , which was closed in 1981, was reactivated in 2000 .

In 2003 the extension to Manacor followed . When the residents of Petra demanded the construction of a tunnel on the old route, the train was instead led around the city, so that the new stop is almost 500 meters outside of the village, as the SFM was not willing to pay for a tunnel. The railway systems on the Manacor – Artà line were only partially removed after the closure, for example in the urban area of ​​Manacor, but after decades of inactivity they were no longer usable. A reconstruction was planned around 2007, and an extension of the route to Cala Ratjada was planned. Furthermore, a new line is to be built from Sa Pobla to Alcúdia , but so far there have been no further activities.

Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca posted a new passenger record in 2005: 320,000 passengers were counted in April. The company therefore increased its vehicle fleet; In 2002, several new, now three-part multiple units with increased capacity, which technically differ only slightly from the previous two-part units and can be coupled to form train sets, were put into operation.

In spring 2010 a landslide occurred on the branch to Manacor during the nightly break in operations. The first train coming from Manacor drove into the debris, derailed and was badly damaged. The causes of the landslide had not yet been conclusively clarified by September 2010, the trains ran between Palma and Sineu according to the schedule while the route was closed, and there was replacement bus service between Sineu and Manacor. The damaged vehicles of the train of the accident were then, partly covered with tarpaulin, on a gravel yard at Enllaç station.

In July 2011, Rosé Ramón Orta was appointed managing director of the company by the Balearic government. The SFM is currently heavily in debt. The liabilities to the banks alone amount to 350 million euros with annual income of 5 million euros compared to salary expenses of 14.1 million euros. Invoices from suppliers could no longer be paid since October 2010. For the reconstruction of Manacor-Artà there was a construction freeze since July 2011 after 29 percent of the project had been carried out (19 percent without the purchase of the new trains). The future of the route was unclear for a long time. Since 2014 the route has been used as a cycle path (»vía verde«).

The Palma – Inca – Enllaç section was electrified in 2011/12 with 1500 volts DC, the same system as the Palma Metro line. Electrical operation began on February 16, 2012. Preliminary work in the form of overhead conductor rail suspensions in the tunnel sections had been in place since the construction of the Metro de Palma and the Palma Estació Intermodal train station in 2007.

Route network of the Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca

Estació Intermodal in Palma

Bridge in Marratxí (Carrer Cabana)

Routing at Llubí

Manacor station building

Route section	Length (km)	Opened	Discontinued	Remarks
Palma – Inca	28.60	1875	-	from 1931 double-track, in operation
Palma harbor	2.90	1877	1931
Inca – Sinéu	13.84	1878	1977	Completely refurbished in 2002, back in operation
Inca – Sa Pobla	13.10	1878	1981	Completely refurbished in 2001, back in operation
Sinéu-Manacor	21.31	1879	1977	Completely renovated in 2003, back in operation
Consell-Alaró	3.72	1881	1935	750 mm track width
Santa Maria-Felanitx	42.79	1897	1968
Palma – Llucmajor	30.72	1916	1965
Llucmajor – Campos	17.50	1917	1965
Campos-Santany	13.80	1918	1965
Manacor – Son Servera – Artà	30.35	1921	1977	used as a cycle path since 2014
Palma– port (city tunnel)	2.13	1931	1964

The following places are integrated into today's network with stops:

bus stop	Travel time from Palma in minutes	annotation
Marratxí	15th
Santa Maria	23
Consell / Alaró	27	to the disused train station Alaró approx. 3 km walk
Binissalem	31
lloseta	35
Inca	40
to Sa Pobla
Llubi	49
Muro	53
Sa Pobla	57
to Manacor
Sinéu	48
Petra	57
Manacor	66

There are also stops in the suburbs of Palma Son Olivia, Son Fuster, Verge de LLuc, Pont D'Inca, Pont D'Inca Nou and Poligon. The suburbs of the capital between Palma and Marratxí are only served by the trains to Sa Pobla. The trains to Manacor go through to Marratxí. An additional train commutes between Palma and Marratxí. The journey time from Palma to Manacor is around 60 minutes.

vehicles

The steam locomotive procured in 1875 was given the number 1 and the name MALLORCA . In 1889 a locomotive from Nasmith-Wilson followed. The locomotive ALFONSO XIII. was made on the island in 1902. In 1921 a steam locomotive manufactured by Kopel in Berlin was delivered. In the 1960s, the typical MAN railcars of the FEVE series 2300 also came to Mallorca, they were taken over by SFM in 1994 and remained in service until they were replaced by the CAF units of the 61 series.

Series 61 diesel multiple unit in Inca

Interior view of a class 61 railcar

Since 2002, the Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca has been using new vehicles from the Spanish company CAF . For the Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca, the drafts, planning, manufacture and test drives were carried out between 1995 and 1998.

Each diesel railcar has two diesel engines with hydraulic gearboxes and is characterized by the following technical data:

• Length: 32 m
• Track width: 1000 mm
• Height: 3,745 m
• Doors on each side: 4
• Door width: 1.2 m
• Maximum speed: 100 km / h
• Total engine power: 620 kW at 2100 min ^-1
• Seats per unit: 96
• Standing room per unit: 156
• Optional equipment:
• Train control system
• Automatic station announcement, radio system
• Mechanical-pneumatic door automatic with sensor monitoring
• Fire extinguishing system
• Air conditioning with separate diesel generator
• Scharfenberg coupling (Schaku; license construction CAF) for quickly strengthening and weakening train sets

Further planning

Section Manacor - Artà

As a contribution of the island railway to the relief of road traffic, it was planned to reactivate large parts of the route network. These included the connections:

• Inca– Alcúdia : In operation as far as Sa Pobla
• Inca – Artá– (Cala Millor– Cala Ratjada ): In operation as far as Manacor, converted into a cycle path as far as Artá ​​after construction was demolished; remaining new line canceled
• Palma– Santanyí : In planning

The reconstruction of the section from Manacor to Artá ​​was planned by December 2011. It was supposed to be operated with six newly purchased electric double multiple units from Vossloh España . The trains manufactured in Albuixech ( Valencia ) were delivered to Mallorca in early March 2011. The trains are each 37 meters long, 2.55 meters wide and offer space for 317 passengers. These are so-called trams (tram-train) with a maximum speed of up to 100 km / h. After the election of José Ramón Bauzà from the conservative Partit Popular de Balears as President of the Balearic Islands in June 2011, a construction freeze was ordered for the route in August 2011. At the end of 2012, the regional government decided not to complete the railway line.

On February 17, 2012, when a new timetable came into force, electric train operations between Palma (Estacio Intermodal) and the Enllaç branching station began. Since then, you have to change trains in Enllaç to continue to Sa Pobla or Manacor. Corresponding new multiple units were supplied by CAF for electrical operation. The electrification work on the sections from Enllaç to Manacor and Sa Pobla began on June 27, 2017. With the timetable from January 8, 2019, the changeover in Enllaç will no longer be necessary and the trains will run electrically on the entire route network.

New terminus in Palma

In 2007, SFM received a new central, underground terminus in the capital Palma. The previous station, the starting point of the double-track route towards Inca, was separated from the rail network on August 16, 2005 and completely demolished in the following weeks. From August 17, 2005, all trains began and ended around 1 kilometer further northeast in a provisional terminus. Together with the construction of the Metro de Palma , the underground station Estació Intermodal - Plaça d'Espanya was built on the site of the old train station and the Parc de Ses Estacións to the east for around 90 million euros and opened in March 2007. The new train station with five platforms and ten tracks serves as the terminus for both the SFM and the metro to the university and also houses a bus station for regional and city buses as well as a parking garage.

See also

• Rail transport in Mallorca

literature

• Klaus-Jürgen Vetter, Sarah Wolff: Discover Mallorca by train . Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-7654-7180-1 .
• Klaus-Jürgen Vetter, Wolfgang Heitzmann, Sarah Wolff: Railway paradise Mallorca . GeraMond, 2004, ISBN 3-7654-7254-9 .
• J. Pere Brunet Estarelles: La Companyia dels Ferrocarrils de Mallorca . Institut D'Estudis Baleárics, 1994, ISBN 84-87026-34-6 (Catalan).

Web links

Commons : Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Transport de Illes Balears. Retrieved November 1, 2011 (Catalan, Spanish). 
• Railway in Mallorca. Retrieved November 1, 2011 (based on this article). 
• Railway in Mallorca. Retrieved on July 3, 2012 (information, news, pictures). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Joan Frau: "The company is completely unprofitable" . Interview with José Ramón Orta, managing director of SFM. In: Mallorca newspaper . No. 593 . Palma September 15, 2011, p. 10 (Spanish, online in Diario de Mallorca [accessed on 23 September 2011] Original title: 'Es probable que tengamos que reducir las frecuencias y subir las tarifas del tren' .).
2. ↑ The train to Artà must be built . In: Mallorca newspaper . August 18, 2011 ( online [accessed November 1, 2011]).
3. ↑ Piggyback to the rails . In: Mallorca newspaper . No. 568 , March 24, 2011, p. 33 .
4. ↑ Thomas Zapp: Route of Desolation. Article in Mallorca Magazin No. 48/2012 from November 29, 2012, pp. 6/7
5. ^ Message from SFM on the new timetable from February 17, 2012: A partir del dia 17 de febrer el servei a la línea Palma-Enllaç és elèctric. (Catalan) ( Memento of the original from July 14, 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. 
6. ↑ Project description. (PDF; 1.7 MB) Accessed December 26, 2010 (Spanish). 
7. ↑ SFM timetable. Retrieved January 27, 2019 .