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Portuguese Steam From Lineside By V C K Allen Hard Cover 1976 Photo book
Portuguese Steam From Lineside By V C K Allen Hard Cover 1976 Photo book
introduction
A country of great charm and character. Portugal is one of England's oldest allies and, in many ways, seems to have more in common with Britain than with its nearest neighbour, Spain. The weary traveller who has endured the long journey by rail across France and Spain arrives at length in Lisbon, or in the northern capital, Porto, and is apt to rub his eyes in disbelief at the English-style telephone boxes, pillar boxes and buses. When he turns to the railway scene, however, any comparison with England vanishes, for parts of the Portuguese Railway Company-Companhia dos Caminhos de Ferro Portugueses. or CP for short-are a treasury of steam locomotives, still performing tasks for which they were designed, in some cases, nearly ninety years ago.
The main lines of Portugal are laid to the Iberian gauge of 5ft 6in while the secondary lines are of metre gauge, and almost all is single track. Highlights of the broad gauge system include Henschel 4-6-0s of two varieties-inside cylinder engines dating from 1910 and outside cylinder locomotives only three years their junior.
Portugal's most modern steam locomotives are a quartet of metre gauge 2-8-2 tanks built in 1931 for the suburban line from Porto to Povoa de Varzim, but the narrow gauge stock is a diverse collection of engines of considerable antiquity-all tank engines-including 0-4-4-0 and 2-4-6-0 Mallets; 2-6-0s of various types; 4-6-0s and some 0-6-0 shunters. Even as late as 1974 a group of 2-6-0 tanks built in 1886 by Emil Kessler were still busily at work on the Tua line, an 84-mile tentacle following the River Tua from the historic city of Braganca, close to the Spanish border, to a junction with the broad gauge Douro Valley line at Tua itself-a route which is by no means easily graded.
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