On January 14th a group of 37 of us drove to Águilas in order to join the Tourist Train for a guided tour of the historic Railway. We met by the Railroad Monument, a locomotive built in 1889 in Glasgow. After an excellent introduction, in english, by our guide Anabel, we drove to the Railway Museum, located below the railway station. Here we found a fascinating photographic exhibition and tools used throughout history, as well as several models of trains in motion.
The next stop was at the start of the Sendero del Hornillo, we walked along the elevated path, where several tunnels and mineral deposits are located. Anabel explained how the mineral trains unloaded their cargo into the storage tunnels below. At the height of activity, from 1903 until the civil war, around 84 trains per day brought silver, lead and iron down to the port.
We then admired the loading platform from the view point above. Anabel then led us into one of the storage tunnels, recently refurbished and now a museum. The walls were lined with pictures taken at the beginning of the twentieth century, by the British manager at the time.
Lastly we rode around the bay so that we could have a better view of the “Embarcadero del Hornillo”, the majestic ore loading platform built in 1901 by the Compañía Britanico de Ferrocarriles del Sureste.
The tour finished at 1:30, perfect timing for lunch. We walked to the Fu Zhou Chinese restaurant, where we enjoyed an excellent meal.
