Estremoz Railway Station (Portugal)
On July 13, 2019, the Railway Heritage World Blog went to Estremoz, in Portugal, with Diane de Camproger; she is a tour guide of VAGAR – Walkingtours. The walk was full of history and nature, but what we want to show here are the remaining parts of Ramal de Estremoz. Do you remember Évora Railway Station? Estremoz tracks came from there.
Besides the railway station and a small workshop, in the end of our tour, we were able to find the old railway path. In contrast to the buildings, the tracks were not preserved; besides the unnatural configuration of the ground, we could see the woods used as a part of the tracks.
History
To understand the history of the railway station of Estremoz, we need to know a bit about Alentejo. When the Portuguese rail network started to be designed, Alentejo, a region in the south of Portugal, had a strong agricultural production; it used to supply Lisbon with wheat, meat, olive oil, wool, marble, among other products. Thus, Évora Railway Line was designed mainly to give some support to the transportation of these products.
Estremoz produced wheat flour and has a rich deposit of marble; this last product was and, it still is, exported to many parts of the world. The railway reached the city in 1873; in the beginning of the 20th century, its tracks were extended to Portalegre and to Vila Viçosa, another important city to the extraction of marble.
The railway station of Estremoz was inaugurated in 1905. Its railway line stopped to receive passengers in 1990; the tracks received the transportation of goods for more 21 years, when it was totally deactivated.
The Building
Built nearby an old flour mill, the railway station of Estremoz remains closed, but very well preserved. It is a symmetrical building covered by the traditional Portuguese tiles; to avoid theft, they put acrylic front panel all around the building. Beside it we could see another building that seems to be some kind of workshop; it is not preserved in the same way as the station.
Final Considerations
The size, the design and the elements of this railway station is able to show us the importance of Estremoz in Alentejo rail network. The preservation of its façade is very well done, but something else should be done to recover and preserve the history of this sample of Portuguese industrial architecture.
