The Line

    In 134km of railway, multiple landscapes dazzle us, great works permit to our passage, countless stations receive us. A work as was and still is, the Tua Line includes diverse infrastructures, and modelled the landscape which way passes, marking it of indelible form.

From 0 to 134

The Tua Line is a metric gauge line, more known as Narrow Gauge, with134km since the Tua station, also served by the Douro Line (Oporto to Pocinho, and the Spanish border), to Bragança, travelling through valleys, plateaus and mountains of the North-eastern Trás-os-Montes. The still explored track summarizes itself to 58km of the total stretch of the railway, from Tua to Mirandela and Carvalhais, having stayed  for 3 years only 54km of those in exploitation , from Tua to Mirandela. It was in 1995 that a 4km stretch of the railway reopened in the nearby Tua city (Mirandela), towards Carvalhais, for the inauguration of the 2º Portugal's Metropolitan train, the Metro de Mirandela, operating only in this distance initially.

It is varied and dazzling the landscape that the line traverses. Since the Douro vineyards, passing for the gorges of the Baixo Tua, scaling hill up to the plateau of Bornes, and going up up to the walls of the Nogueira Mountain Range, the Tua Line is considered both in an international and national level as the most beautiful Portuguese railway.

Even in short distances, the railway crosses multiple landscapes, in a constant metamorphosis of the Mother Nature. Starting at the Tua station at the same level as the Douro Line, quickly the unevenness begins, and it's quite obvious the climbing in the first kilometre of the line, as the row of houses and the broad gauge line gets more and more down, at the bottom of high walls that supports the narrow gauge line. The entrance in the Baixo Tua is marvellous, with the sight of the Tua Firth and nothing less than three bridges, two of them for the railways. between Tua and Abreiro, station which is half way distance from Tua to Mirandela, exists 5 bridges and 5 tunnels; in the first twenty kilometres they are 4 of each, showing the hardness of the stretch and its building.   

From Abreiro, the stretch gets more easy, as well as the landscape gets more comfortable, towards Mirandela. At the nearby Tua city, main entrance of the North-eastern Trás-os-Montes, the line says goodbye to the river who has been companion since the first kilometre of the tracks. The third phase begins. The second part of the line's building began here, getting it on a different land. Nowadays, trains go 4 kilometres further, till Carvalhais, station from where reigns only silence and abandon. Inside Mirandela, and very near the old station (REFER) and the new one (Metro de Mirandela), lies another tunnel, and after it the old secondary stop of São Sebastião. With the metropolitan arrival, 4 more stations where built: Mirandela-Piaget, Tarana, Jacques Delors, and Jean Monet. From the original line, only the São Sebastião and Carvalhais stations subsists.

Passing the tracks ending at the fortunate village of Carvalhais, the railway continues the flat terrain started at São Sebastião. The National Road 15 (EN15) substitutes the Tua River, to be an almost constant presence along the way to Bragança. Two more secondary stops arose, one of them actually demolished (Avantos), from where the sight of the Jerusalém do Romeu village and the farm of Clemente Meneres appears. Next to it, the big climbing that headed up the hills, crossing and hiding between the tight valley, becomes itself visible as well. The arriving at the Romeu station was only after crossing the Assureira Bridge, the line's largest one.

After the flatted kilometres, the railway returns to a climbing, only towards Cortiços, in a total isolation between mountains and valleys. From Cortiços, the railway crosses the longest distance in a plateau, with some sporadic ramps. At the arrival in Macedo de Cavaleiros, the Bornes Mountain Range appears in the horizon, defining the hydraulic systems of the Rivers Tua and Sabor. The lying down of the tracks from Cortiços to Sendas and Salsas wouldn't mean the same effort spent before. Climbing gradually, and with only two small bridges, the Grijó Pontoon and the Azibo Bridge, near Vale da Porca, the 100th kilometre of the line was reached in the closest range of stations of the entire railway. In a way that became a little away from the villages with station, Salsas was reached, and after it the ramp that turned a mountain head to get to 850 metres altitude, before Rossas' station.

Another way of relative flattering was on, till Mosca. Along the way, the tracks slithers over the hills of the Nogueira Mountain Range, crossing the largest tunnel right after Rossas, another one just before Sortes, and the last one before Remisquedo, after which one of the largest bridges appears, between Remisquedo and Rebordãos. From Rossas, the proximity of the railroad crossings made that trains and cars promoted some racings, to see whom of them could get first to a village, or to Bragança. With one more pontoon and railroad cross, the line reaches the last station before Bragança: Mosca. From the gap between the station building and its warehouse one could finally see Bragança down ahead; the descending of 4 kilometres begins, then the crossing over the Coxa Bridge inside the city, and the other two ones, before the final tracks at the Bragança station, at the city's centre.

No description of the Tua Line could be completed without an in loco visit. So, the advice is a trip, by train to Carvalhais, and a visit to the closed stretch to Bragança, with some truly beautiful landscapes. A visit to the Railway Museum of Bragança is also recommended, with a few locomotives and wagons that served the line for years and years.