Railway

Episode 1

The development of the railway in Portugal was late and slow, but it transformed the Portuguese landscape and created travel conditions incomparable to what existed until them. Portugal did not benefit from an extensive network of canals, unlike other European countries, and its complex geography made travelling within the country a real adventure. Almeida Garrett left a testimony of this challenging endeavor: in Viagens na Minha Terra (1846), published ten years before the first railway station in Portugal opened, he describes his arduous journey from Lisbon to Santarém, shedding light on the difficulties of travel in 19th century Portugal. How did the railway promote new destinations and enable the discovery of new routes?

This map illustrates the boom in railway station openings that happened in Portugal from the mid-19th century until 1906. It shows which lines each station belonged to, indicating which region it led to. Martin Hume, an English historian that lived in Spain for several years, published Through Portugal, recounting his travels in the country, in 1907. Although admitting that “Portuguese railways are slow (…)” (p. 265) and that “In railway travelling it must be borne in mind that the trains on Portuguese railways for the most part run primarily to convey goods and merchandise, and that passengers must be content to wait whilst the goods are being loaded or discharged.” (p. 316), Hume profited immensely from the newly developed railway system. He travelled mainly by train and even depicted the following railway station in his illustrations.

Travelling by train enabled Hume to see a different side of Portugal, and he seemed to greatly enjoy this way of travelling and the panoramas it provided him with. While going to Cascais, he describes his surroundings: “The train from Lisbon, running along the coast for fourteen miles, lands the visitor to Mont’ Estoril in the midst of a beautifully picturesque village of hotels and villas, grouped upon the slope of a hill descending in a semicircle to the sea, with pines and eucalyptus woods above, and palms everywhere below.” (p. 261).
There is no doubt that the growth of the railway system in Portugal allowed for faster and easier connections within the country. Our map shows how this development started in Lisbon and slowly spread outward, with the development of the North Line coming a while later. Would the chosen destinations have changed if the authors had encountered more (or even fewer) railways stations? Did travelling by train provide travellers with a different scenery of the country, and if so, could they have arrived at these places without trains?