The Sintra tramway is a

seasonal A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller struc ...

tourist tram line in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, In recognized minority languages of Portugal: :* mwl, República Pertuesa is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Macaronesian ...

. It links the town of

Sintra Sintra (, ) is a town and municipality in the Greater Lisbon region of Portugal, located on the Portuguese Riviera. The population of the municipality in 2011 was 377,835, in an area of . Sintra is one of the most urbanized and densely populat ...

with , passing through Colares and close to the . It has a length of some .

History

The line opened in 1904 over the between Sintra railway station and Praia das Maçãs. A connecting long urban tram route linked the Sintra station with Sintra Vila. Besides passenger traffic, freight was carried, principally between Banzão and Sintra station. In 1930, the line was extended by from Praia das Maças to

Azenhas do Mar Azenhas do Mar is a seaside town (residential neighborhood) in the municipality of Sintra, Portugal. It is part of Colares civil parish. Azenhas do Mar means ''Watermills of the Sea'' and the name derives from a once-powerful stream that moved th ...

, but this extension survived only until 1954. The following year, the urban line was closed, leaving just the original line between Sintra station and Praia das Maçãs. Winter service had ended in 1953, and the line continued to run as a summer only service until 1974. Following the

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution ( pt, Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April ( pt, 25 de Abril, links=no), was a military coup by left-leaning military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime on 25 April 1974 in Lis ...

of 1974, there was no service on the tramway until 1980. A summer service then resumed, albeit an irregular service over the short section between Praia das Maçãs and Banzão. Following

denationalisation Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

of Portugal's provincial bus services in the 1990s, ownership of the line was taken over by Stagecoach Portugal, but the tram services—which operated only during the tourist season—was later handed over to the Municipality of Sintra, which re-extended the line over its long-abandoned formation from Ribeira to central Sintra. Damage to the infrastructure occurred in late 2011 when a tree fell on the line and a stretch of overhead

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish ...

cables Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

was stolen, costing the council

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

150,000. The tramway was reopened for the 2012 season.

References

External links

Elétrico de Sintra from Câmara Municipal de Sintra

Heritage streetcar systems {{Europe-tram-stub