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PORTUGUESE NARROW GAUGE RAILWAYS

Railway Holiday in Portugal

DEREK WINKWORTH

By the time the British railway enthusiasts discovered the narrow gauge railways of Portugal in the late 1960s the various companies operating the lines had long since been assimilated into the national system of broad and narrow gauge railways under the aegis of CP (Caminhos de Ferro Portugueses). This happened on 1 January 1947, a year before similar events in Britain. Apart from the occasional – and it seems very occasional indeed – visitor on business or en passant by boat to other climes who might find the narrow gauge terminus in, say, Porto (anglicised Oporto) the railway enthusiast was absent. There was one notable exception in Mr John Gibbons who sampled the Sabor line soon after its final extension was opened and so impressed was the editor of The Railway Magazine with his description that he published it twice (April 1940 and August 1940) the second time in greater detail than the original. Therefore this album relates to CP days post-1960, its purpose being, on the one hand, to give those enthusiasts not lucky enough to have visited the country the sight of things they have missed and, on the other, to evoke a nostalgic response in those who were able to see the narrow gauge even if it was in the autumn of its existence. Apart from opening and closure dates (month and year only) there are no chunks of history to wade through. Rather, such will have to be winkled out of the captions. Likewise, no lists of locomotives or rolling stock neither heights or lengths of bridges and so on appear; all those are comprehensively dealt with in the definitive volume Narrow Gauge Railways Of Portugal by W.J.K. Davies. So, just turn the pages and wallow in the pictures!

Paperback

ISBN: 1-903266-62-9

Price: £9.95