PETITION for the Tua Line ALIVE
This is the translation from the original in Portuguese of the Petition, that you can SIGN HERE. You MUST give the number of an Identity Document, either is the ID number or the Passport number. You can leave a comment also.
To: President of the National Parliament of Portugal, President of the Portuguese Republic, Government of the Portuguese Republic, President of the European Commission, UNESCO
The Tua Line is a narrow gauge railway line, that connects the Foz do Tua station, inserted in the Douro Vinhateiro Region - World Heritage (UNESCO - 2001), where the Douro Line passes, to the city and district capital, Bragança. It is a master-piece of Portuguese engineering with 120 years of History, which daring allowed the passage of trains through the insurmountable rocks of the Tua Valley and through the Mountains of the North-eastern Trás-os-Montes. Every year dozens of thousands of tourists come along here just to see the Valley and to travel in the trains, in straight union with the Douro tourism - with the reopening of the Douro Line with Spain they will be many more - and thousands of other passengers, most of all from the region, who doesn't have any other means of transportation beyond the train, for their daily dislocations - school, hospital, markets.
Despite all the valour that the Tua Line and Valley represents both national and internationally speaking, the Portuguese Government intends to, against the recommendations of several independent agencies and against the good sense that from all governors is required, with unlawfullnesses and with unprecedented celerity, the construction of a dam in the Tua river firth, whose projected quotes will submerge part of the Tua Line, leaving it without connection with the Douro Line, which is vital to its sustainability and maintenance as main axis of the region communications.
The Tua Dam will mean this for Trás-os-Montes Region:
Destruction of Bragança District's last railway, the worst of all in public transportation and inhabitants mobility status in Portugal;
Destruction of olive trees and Demarcated Douro Region vineyards, directly by submersion, and indirectly through a most vast area with the increase of humidity, heat and greenhouse gases levels;
Destruction of Carlão and São Lourenço Baths;
No creation of employment. As the construction goes on, it will be mostly supported by workers that come outside of the region, brought by the constructors, like in other similar constructions. With the works finished, they will disappear from the region, and the maintenance and management will be supported by a team of technicians that are not from the region, and the dam will be controlled from Bagaúste Dam:
More power lines will be built, with all the health problems that they represent;
It will be another escape of wealth from the region, once the enterprises that will built and explore the dam are founded in no ward crossed by the Tua Line and River.
We subscribe with this Petition the implementation of the following measures:
Improvement of the Tua Line services, with more circulations and better connections with the Douro Line, timetables adjusted to the needs of the local population, rolling stock with better conditions (including more space for the luggage, more seated places, and toilets, because its a trip that can go up to 2 hours), and superior speed limits, turning it more competitive;
Classification of the Tua Line as National Monument, after its characteristics of unique Portuguese engineering, and Human and Natural environment of the Tua Valley;
Reopening of the Tua Line between Carvalhais and Bragança;
Construction of a railway line connecting Bragança to Puebla de Sanabria (Spain), to allow the linking with the spanish conventional and high speed networks;
Returning of relevant historical railway material to the region, namely the water tower of Bragança, station's lanterns and clocks, and the adequate and fast reopening of Bragança Railway Museum;
Definitive impediment of the construction of dams, or any other similar structure, in the Tua river area and World Heritage area, that implicates the destruction of any stretch of the Tua Line.
For more information, please visit the MCLT – Movimento Cívico pela Linha do Tua (Civic Movement for the Tua Line) site, in http://www.linhadotua.net.