Almorchón – Mirabueno

In 1864, the railway company CRB, which ran from Ciudad Real to Badajoz, acquired the concession for the construction of the Almorchón-Belmez railway line with the aim of transporting coal from the mining basins of Belmez and Peñarroya, in the valley of the river Guadiato. From Almorchón, the material would change to the Badajoz-Ciudad Real line, owned by the same company, as far as Puertollano. The works would be inaugurated in 1864. [1][2]

In turn, from the beginning of 1860, various initiatives emerged to connect the capital of Cordoba with the aforementioned basins, as at that time the coal trade was a very lucrative business. For this reason, the Sociedad Anónima del Ferrocarril de Córdoba-Espiel-Belmez began construction of this new route between 1861 and 1863.

Delays in the pace of execution ended up weighing down the company’s liquidity, and it was forced to sell the concession to the Compañía del Ferrocarril de Córdoba a Belmez. However, this company was also not immune to the economic solvency problems arising from the financial crisis of 1866, so the project suffered further delays and even changed ownership twice more. First it was the responsibility of the businessman and aristocrat Joaquín de la Gándara, who began work between Belmez and La Alhondiguilla. Later, in 1869, the businessman Jorge Loring took over the reins of a company that was facing significant financial problems and notable technical difficulties in the most rugged areas of the Sierra Morena. It was necessary to build almost a dozen tunnels and countless sections of trench. [3]

After the partial opening of the sections that were under construction, the inauguration of the complete line took place in 1870, with the provisional Córdoba-Cercadilla station being the head of the line. [4]

Far from the economic difficulties having ended with the completion of the works, their operation proved equally problematic, leading to the bankruptcy of the company. In 1880, and after years of legal disputes, the Compañía de los Ferrocarriles Andaluces took over the Córdoba-Bélmez section, while the Bélmez-Almorchón section passed into the hands of MZA, which had absorbed CRB.

An agreement was signed between the two companies for the shared use of the Bélmez station, which was owned by MZA. For its part, the Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo station also had a direct narrow-gauge link to Puertollano and Fuente del Arco. [5][6][7][8]

The intensity of extraction at the beginning of the 20th century and the competition between the different companies operating the lines meant that the pace of work and the use of the infrastructure were taken to extremes. There were several accidents on this line, the most notable being the Los Pradillos accident in 1920, in which several people were killed when a mixed goods and passenger train derailed.

The nationalisation of the Iberian gauge railways in 1941 allowed for the rationalisation of the service and the improvement of the infrastructures of this line. [3] 

In 1970 it was necessary to build a variant line to bypass the new Puente Nuevo reservoir, and the Alhondiguilla-Villaviciosa station was created. Just one year later, after evaluating the economic profitability of the passenger service, RENFE decided to suspend the service, reserving the line exclusively for the transport of goods and for the passage of military trains from the Cerro Muriano detachment. [3] [9]

Many stations were closed and infrastructure maintenance was reduced, resulting in considerably low speeds. The last section towards Córdoba was interrupted during the construction of the Madrid-Seville high-speed rail line, and the infrastructure was not restored afterwards. Until 2020, only the section from Almorchón to El Vacar-Villaharta station remained in service for goods, with the rest of the line to Córdoba being abandoned and partially dismantled. From 2020, the trains that supplied coal to the Puente Nuevo thermal power station, which was scheduled to close at the end of that year, stopped running. [3][10][11]

Despite the demands of the mayors of the Guadiato valley to reopen the passenger service to Córdoba, in 2022 the Regional Government of Andalusia terminated the contract it had signed years earlier for the drafting of an informative study on its reopening. [12]

The landscape value of the line is inversely proportional to the state of conservation of its sections. From Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo to Córdoba, the route first follows the Guadiato valley and then enters the heart of the Sierra Morena, offering interesting scenic views. The northernmost section, which is the best preserved, crosses flat, predominantly agricultural landscapes, with no particularly noteworthy tourist value.

Category C2.
A disused railway line in an abandoned or partially dismantled state.