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Legacy of Andorra's mining railway

Andorra, Andorra-Sierra de Arcos, Teruel

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Legacy of Andorra's mining railway

Curiosity · Andorra, Andorra-Sierra de Arcos, Teruel

The legacy of Andorra's mining railway preserves the heritage of the Andorra-Escatrón line, built between 1947 and 1953 by the Empresa Nacional Calvo Sotelo (ENCASO). With 45.761 kilometres of Iberian gauge track between Escatrón, Samper, Cabeza Gorda and Andorra, it carried coal from the Andorra mines to the Escatrón thermal power plant and, from 1979, to the one in Teruel: in 1975 it moved more than 1.1 million tonnes. It was operated by ENCASO and later, from the 1970s, by ENDESA. The Escatrón-Samper section closed in 1978 and the last steam train ran in 1984; the Teruel power plant closed in 2020, ending commercial traffic. Today it stands as testimony to the comarca's industrial heritage, with locomotives preserved at the Railway Museum in Madrid and at various points in Aragón.

Photo: Juan Emilio Prades Bel (CC BY 4.0)

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