OK then, let me be honest - the main reason for this trip to Portugal was for a bit of what we call "haulage" in the UK. This can take many forms but is basically travelling behind different types of locomotives, preferably loud diesels and there are plenty of those in Portugal.
PTG Tours usually organise at least one tour each year using several different types of engine over two or three days, this was a three day tour covering a large area of the country and would hopefully bring good weather and lots of photographic opportunities.
The tour itself commenced on Thursday evening so those of the group who had flown out the previous day had a few spare hours before the start of the tour. I decided on a round trip from Lisbon to Guarda (Portugal's highest city), out via the main line and return via the scenic Beira Baixa line. Not much scope for photography as the service over here is sparse, but one opportunity did present itself at Covilhã when the cleaning ladies started on the locomotive cab after going through the interior of the coaches.
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PhotoID: 161646
Photograph © Janet Cottrell |
We caught up with the special at Entroncamento and went to Coimbra for our overnight stay. The following morning dawned bright and clear, enabling a nice shot of the coaches arriving for our special train past some of the basic, but interesting CP semaphore signals.
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PhotoID: 161692
Photograph © Janet Cottrell |
Day one was a trip down one of my favourite Portuguese lines, the Douro Valley - with the added attraction of (probably) the first ever visit of a 1931 class loco to Pocinho. There were a quite a few opportunities for pictures along the way but the weather had deteriorated so the results were not what had been hoped for. It even started raining on the return journey but it was still an enjoyable trip behind what has to be one of the loudest diesel engines in Europe (all the 1901 and 1931 class locos had their silencers removed some years ago due to reliability issues, and boy - are they LOUD)
The highlight of Saturday's trip was a run to Serpins, the only access to this line being via a little used street tramway which normally only sees one return working very early in the morning. For the rest of the day the trains terminate at Coimbra-Parque which is a short walk from the city centre.
There was another "first" today - that of a visit to Serpins of a Bombardier 1961 class on a passenger train. It might even have been the very first visit ever, though that would be hard to prove bearing in mind that detailed documentation of locomotive workings in Portugal were rather unknown even as recently as 15 to 20 years ago. These Canadian built locos date from 1979 and are CP's longest locos - UK railfans have given them the nickname of "dumper trucks" because that's just what they sound like.
After trundling down the street, the line rises quite steeply into the hills so a good noisy journey was had to the terminus where there was time to take some more photos.
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PhotoID: 161647
Photograph © Janet Cottrell |
Although we could have run round at the end, there was an English Electric built 1401 class on the rear of the train to work back. These engines are one of the main reasons why many UK railfans have an interest in Portugal, being based on the British Rail class 20
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PhotoID: 147542
Photograph © Mark Bearton |
1461 had to work hard to drag the five coaches and dead Bombardier up the hill out of Serpins, a good performance from a relatively small engine. Once back at Coimbra-Parque we had to negotiate the section of street running again, this time against the flow of road traffic, so a police escort was required. If reasonably fit, it is possible to keep up with the train on foot and take pictures all the way down this section. However, fit I am definitely NOT - so after taking a couple of departing shots I gave up and made for the major road junction opposite the art deco "Hotel Astoria" where a further shot was managed courtesy of the train halting briefly to allow the road traffic to stop.
Leaving Coimbra, the train headed north - stopping briefly at Pampilhosa to drop the Bombardier loco off the rear. We then took the Ramal da Figueira da Foz which is still open despite many threats of closure.
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PhotoID: 161648
Photograph © Janet Cottrell |
We ran round at Figueira da Foz and headed for Lisbon with a stop at Valado where there was an option for a brief off-train excursion. Dinner was served on departure accompanied with copious amounts of local wine and noise from the loco on the front. A bonus photo opportunity cropped up at Torres Vedras between the main course and dessert when a bit of early running caused us to pause for a few minutes to wait for "right time".
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PhotoID: 161649
Photograph © Janet Cottrell |
The third and final day saw a change of power to an "old electric" which took us from Lisbon to Setil, by old I mean late 1950's / early 1960's vintage as opposed to the more modern types in normal use on passenger trains. These locos were built in two slightly different batches, 2556 was one of the second batch which mostly have stainless steel bodies.
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PhotoID: 161693
Photograph © Janet Cottrell |
By the way, bearing in mind the thread on another part of this forum, I should point out that walking across or along the tracks in Portugal is not generally an issue except in parts of Lisbon or Porto. It is not unusual to see a train arrive at a station and half the passengers walk off down or across the tracks to get to their destinations.
From Setil we had a change of loco to MLW built 1564 which would take us on a long circular tour back to Lisbon, including a run on the freight only line to the pyrites mine at Neves Corvo. It was not long before we stopped for another photo at the currently disused station at Coruche.
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PhotoID: 161650
Photograph © Janet Cottrell |
Many miles later we reached Neves Corvo, ran round, and returned to the junction station of Ourique for a break. This is one of the more remote areas of Portugal and there were fears of there being nothing there to while away the time, of course we were wrong - nearly every CP station has a bar on the platform or nearby and Ourique was no exception. There were three bars within a stones' throw of the station, the one we chose was basically an old guy's front parlour - the door behind the counter led directly into his house. It was a very hot day and the hundred or so passengers on the train must have consumed about a month's supply of beer, cold drinks and ice cream in the hour and a half we were there.
Upon leaving, we headed north towards Beja and back to Poceirão for our final locomotive of the trip. This was to be 1905, a no-heat "freight" version of the 1931 class, they look the same and are just as loud so it was a rousing finale to the three days.
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PhotoID: 161651
Photograph © Janet Cottrell |
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