Ecopista Ramal de Mora in Évora (Portugal)

On december 23, 2016, the Railway Heritage World traveled to Portugal and made a visite to the city of Évora, an UNESCO Heritage. There, we walked through the whole railway branch that used to make part of the Évora-Mora railway line and now it is used as a Greenway for pedestrians and bicycles.

The History

As we could see, this railway was inaugurated in 1908 (ciclovia.pt) to connect Évora to Mora, but around the 1990s, this branch was closed.

The Greenway had its first branch, from Évora to Graça do Divor, inaugurated on April 25, 2005 (ciclovia.pt). Along the way we didn't see any kind of information about its history. There was some signs about its use and we remarked that there used to be a big sign in the beginning of the greenway, but it doesn't exist anymore, only its support had left.

The Way and the heritage preservation

We walked only along the branch which crosses the city of Évora. It is an interesting landscape, where we could see part of the city and some rural areas, but the Greenway seems to be a bit badly maintained. In its entrance there is a halt falling a part.

We found other halt and a station a long of this branch that are well conserved and reused as rastaurants, ciclying club and coffee shop. The interesting thing is that we would never know that this buildings were part of the old railway if there were not distance signs on their walls. The walk was like a "Where's Wally" game, because the remnants of the railway are not clear or highlighted.

There is an old factory, which used the railway. It is the Leões factory, which is reused as a part of the Évora University. Its building has an elevated platform, but as the whole building is aligned to this platform, many students, with who we spoke and who use the building everyday, never realized before that this platform exists because of an old railway.

In front of this building are located the station (the picture above on the right) and a sign of "Attention to the trains. Stop, Listen and Look. It is forbidden to walk on the line.", but, as it was said before, they are not that obvious in the scenario.

The Railway and the City

The railway doesn't exist anymore. The Greenway was a solution to reuse the area, but not to preserve this industrial heritage. A citizen said that, while they conserved the railway with no use the whole area became a space of criminality and drugs. Thus, the reconvertion was useful to put an end in this old enviroment.

Besides that, during the summer, many people use the space to jog, run, walk and for ciclying. There is even a open fitness area, built by the municipality that is used by people of all ages.

Final Considerations

The Greenway is a nice and common solution to reuse railway areas, but the rail remnants need to be treated with attention to preserve the railway memory. Évora has an interesting railway history, it was the railway center of Alentejo, its railway system was called as "Évora Star". The branch of Évora-Mora is a part of this history, thus it is important to try to recover and preserve its memory as a part of the daily life background.

If you know this Greenway, share your point of view with us!