Majorca Railways Newsletter

~ Ferrocarriles de Mallorca ~
Newsletter - December 2005

There are a lot of large photos in the newsletter and I have had to locate them on another site so they will be a little slow to load. Please have patience, they are worth waiting for !!

Following on from the previous newsletter, I have received a number of photos from Roger Bryen (thanks, Roger) of the actual demolition of the Gaspar Benassar bridge and here they are, together with recent photos of Enllac/Empalme, Arta and the viaduct at Arenal:-

The Gaspar Benassar bridge in process of demolition

View from the eatern end of where the bridge previously stood

View along the platform of the temporary TIB station with the bridge in the background

A more distant view along the platform of the temporary TIB station with the bridge being demolished in the background

View in the opposite direction. The line to Santañy curved off to the right about 50 yards away

The demolition/building site that once was the FCM/SFM railway yard and station. In the distance are the old FCM station building and the Hostal Terminus<BR><BR>
<IMG height=600 width=800 border=2 hspace=5 SRC=

Enllac/Empalme with works and passenger trains

Enllac/Empalme with works train and pedestrian underpass

Roger was an extremely busy bunny last month because not only did he record the demolition of the Gaspar Benassar bridge, he also spotted something rather unusual as he sped through the Santa Maria halt on the Sóller Railway. The train was going too fast for him to get a photo but, from his description, we determined that it was the body of the "crocodile" loco which was loaned to the Sóller Railway by the Museo Vasco del Ferrocarril of Azpeitia in the Basque region of northern Spain in 2001. Unfortunately the Sóller Railway didn't have the necessary equipment to reunite the loco body with its bogies - see my May 2001 newsletter - but how on earth the loco body comes to be resting at a halt in the middle of nowhere I'd love to know. Our friend Toni Sanchis at AAFB has pictures of the forlorn item and here are a couple (more on their website):-

Thanks to Toni Sanchis and AAFB for these pictures.

Pete Kilby was about to leave for a short holiday in Majorca when this story first broke and, armed with Roger Bryen's information, he was able to take this photo from the train

Abandoned loco body

Pete also took a couple of non-railway pictures which will interest those who, like me, are afficionados of Puerto de Sóller - they show the demolition of the old building which used to house the fishermen's equipment and nets and the Fish Restaurant. Thanks for these photos Pete.

Finally, a picture of my own, taken in September this year

Fishermen's building already gone

The following report by Mike Bent appeared in the November issue of Today's Railways

Though extremely interesting, there are some inaccuracies inasmuch as not one but three underground carparks now intersect the old tunnel - see
http://www.majorcarailways.com/page3.htm . They are at Plaça Mayor, Plaça Olivar and the new one - see
http://www.majorcarailways.com/newsletter_aug2001.htm) at Plaça d'Espanya. I wonder whether there will be a terminus at the new underground station or whether the line might continue out to the northern suburbs somewhere. It will also be interesting to see what happens at Parque del Mar where the tunnel debouches within metres of the ornamental lake which was built over the old port railway yard. Watch this space !!

A video of the Sóller Railway was recently transmitted on the Travel Channel on Sky. It was an extremely good 45 minute program with a great deal of information given in the commentary. A DVD of the program plus a driver's cabview of the line is available at
http://www.travelchannel.co.uk/ontv/programmeAtoZ/soller_railway.htm
I've already got mine !! Second person in the list of acknowledgements was Miguel Galmés Schwarz who was, until recently, Director of the Sóller Railway.The new Director is Miquel Socías. I wish him the very best in his new job and I hope we will be able to establish the same good relations that we had with his predecessor.

If anyone out there is not already on my "mailing list" and would like to be included, please let me know - there is a clickable link further down the page. Thanks again to my contributors and supporters, any comments on the contents will always be much appreciated.

Brief descriptions of the contents of previous newsletters

Mike Kaben's superb illustrated report

Books on Majorcan Railways (Revised September 2004)

A Thumbnail Gallery of my early Pictures of the Sóller Railway and Tramway is now available by clicking here.

Majorca Railways Home Page

Majorca Railways Photo Gallery

Mallorcatren - great source of information but in Mallorquin

Club Vaporista CFVM

Click here to go to the website of the Associación de Amigos del Ferrocarril de Baleares

Watch this site for further developments which will take place whenever new information or pictures come to hand. Any submissions or contributions of information, photos old or new, postcards, books etc., will be very gratefully and enthusiastically received and if used on the site will be suitably acknowledged (as above). The photos, pictures and diagrams used on this site are presented for your information and viewing pleasure only. If any of them should be in copyright violation and the copyright holder would care to notify me I will either remove them or acknowledge the copyright accordingly.