The Trip

From Tua to Mirandela: 54Km of dreams.

In Tua, the line begins as high as the Douro Line. Inserted in the most ancient demarcated vineyard region of the world, the Demarcated Region of the Porto and Douro Wine, the surrounding landscape is uniform, with the vineyards marking a strong presence at the left bank, at both sides of the Douro River downstream , and a wild landscape, even hard and dry upstream. A fine sample of the first kilometres is visible from the Tua Railway Bridge, in the Douro Line, with a road bridge making the cross over the Tua River, from 1940, and the view of the magnificent Presas Bridge, next to a high and trimmed escarpment that falls over the Tua. Both valleys of the two rivers are inserted and deep, and the Douro one crosses upstream nearby a very narrow gorge, offering a rare vision of this Iberian giant with only a few metres wide in the pass. The ancestral isolation of these sites is almost palpable, and the railways and some car that passes give the only proofs of movement and human presence that one can experience.

The departure from Tua is always made after the departure of the trains in the Douro Line; so, it's with an emptier and quieter station that the narrow gauge line train begins its departing ritual. Those who are not novice in the trip chooses invariably a place in the left side of the railcar, if one has no scare of highs, once that it is at this side that one can admire the best landscape in the trip, with clear view over the escarpments of the Tua Valley, and of course over the river itself. Due to the dimensions of the line, all the personal staff knows each other, and human relations function as if all were neighbours, as if they were part of the same village. After all, we are at Trás-os-Montes, where the rhythm of things is particularly different. So, always on time, it's given to the driver the departing signal, with a quick but strong whistle, and with the characteristic rolled and risen flag. With a barely discrete but sharp whistle of the railcar, begins the trip to Mirandela. 

The arrangement of all the station provokes in the passenger that will travel in the Tua Line for the first time the feeling that, during the departing, he's going backwards, once the first metres of the line faces Régua, only to turn up North in a long curve underneath the Alijó road bridge. As the Tua station stays behind more and more, we can see some historical narrow gauge material, as the row of houses, that from time to time shows some simple domestic scenes, from a land that has no rush in living its day to day routine. Suddenly, the railway begins to climb up, and the houses and the Douro Line begins to submerge beneath high walls. We pass next to the deactivated Douro House, and we begin to face North, when the National Road 212 overpasses the line through a viaduct, going then side by side with the line at the same level, and then lower, once the tracks keep going up and the road going down towards the bridge over the Tua. So, in Tua Line's first kilometre, the passenger is introduced to the Baixo Tua by watching the Douro Line crossing the Tua on a metallic bridge very near Tua's firth, the National Road crossing the river as well, on a masonry arched bridge from 1940, and the rail bridge and tunnel of Presas, on a dazzling scenario, explored by the intrepid builders of one of Portugal's most astonishing railway lines.

More still to come!