Benacazón – Huelva

The construction of a railway line between Seville and Huelva was included in the General Railway Plan of 1864, but there was no interest in its realisation until the possibility of using it to transport ore from the Riotinto mines became apparent. The Seville to Huelva and Riotinto Mines Railway Company was created in 1870 by a French businessman who had been awarded a concession a year earlier to build a railway line between the two Andalusian capitals, with a branch line to the Riotinto mines. However, the progress of the project was hampered by legal disputes that arose with the British consortium that acquired the Riotinto mines in 1873 and which argued that the purchase included the right to build its own railway line. [1]

In May 1873, as a result of the delays, a Spanish-German businessman managed to get the authorities to grant him the rights to build the line. In December 1875, this businessman acquired the Seville to Huelva and the Riotinto Mines Railway Company [1] [2], transferring all rights two years later to the MZA, the Madrid to Zaragoza and Alicante Railway Company. The MZA was interested in extending its network to a southern port with access to the Atlantic Ocean after having consolidated its presence in the Guadalquivir valley with the incorporation of the Córdoba-Sevilla line. [3] [4]

During the construction period there were many delays due to the aforementioned changes of ownership, but finally the line was inaugurated by the MZA in March 1880. [2] [5] [6].  From the outset, the line operated with mixed traffic, with passenger and goods trains. Although the original idea was not to create a mining railway, the importance of this transport became more and more important over time, with different connections to the mines from its area of influence. For example, the Buitrón and Riotinto railway lines arrived at San Juan del Puerto station. Likewise, in 1896, the Rio Tinto Company Limited (RTC) built a junction at Las Mallas station, located in Niebla (Huelva). Years later, at Camas station (Seville), another connection point was set up where the routes of the Minas de Cala and Aznalcóllar railway lines crossed. [7]

In 1941, when the Iberian gauge national railway network was nationalised, the Seville-Huelva line became part of the RENFE network and from 1974 onwards, it experienced a significant increase in freight traffic, driven by the activity of the ‘Polo Químico de Huelva’, made up of a group of facilities and infrastructures linked to the city’s petrochemical industry. To respond to this demand, a connecting railway branch line was built and the line as a whole was electrified at 3 kV direct current, a process that was completed in 1978. [8]

En 1990 se realizó una importante reforma de la red ferroviaria en el entorno de Sevilla, proceso en el que la estación de Sevilla-Plaza de Armas deja de ser la cabecera histórica de la línea Sevilla-Huelva. La construcción de una nueva variante junto al trazado de la línea “Alcázar de San Juan-Cádiz” al norte de Sevilla, hizo que varios kilómetros de la línea quedaran fuera de servicio, incluida la histórica estación de Camas. Además, con motivo de la Exposición Universal de Sevilla, celebrada en 1992, se construyó un ramal de conexión del trazado de la línea Sevilla-Huelva con la isla de Cartuja, sede de la Expo’92. [8] [9]

In 2005, under the framework of Railway Sector Law 39/2003, the line came under the control of Adif, like the rest of the RFIG (State Railway Network). In recent years, the line has undergone significant changes, including optimisation of the section of line from Benacazón to Seville, which became part of the Cercanías (commuter) network. Between 2011 and 2012, new stations designed for this new use were opened, including San Jerónimo, Camas, Valencina-Santiponce, Salteras and Benacazón. In addition, some stations became halts, such as Sanlúcar la Mayor, Niebla and San Juan del Puerto, replacing the original stations. [10] [11]. On the other hand, in 2018 the new Huelva station was inaugurated, becoming the terminal of the line and replacing the historic Huelva-Término station in this function.

With the transfer of the section between Benacazón and Seville to the local network, Adif reconfigured the line, establishing its start at the Los Naranjos junction. Currently the Los Naranjos-Huelva line is considered strategic for rail freight transport, being particularly important for the Port of Huelva and the Chemical Complex. Long-distance, medium-distance and freight trains currently run on it, but in the future, after the construction of the Seville-Huelva high-speed line, whose informative study was approved in December 2024, freight transport could become dominant on the current line, opening up interesting possibilities for its development. In addition, refurbishment work has recently been carried out on several sections of the line, replacing and renovating rails, sleepers (changing from bi-block to mono-block) and ballast.

The line, popularly known as the Seville-Huelva line, has considerable tourist potential despite the fact that the landscape it crosses, typical of the Andalusian countryside, is in many places very intensified and degraded. Its route, although it runs through mostly flat terrain, crosses several important rivers that require significant engineering works, such as the bridges over the Guadalquivir, Guadalimar and Tinto rivers. The importance of the two main cities along the line, from a historical, cultural and economic point of view, and the access it provides to beaches, natural parks and historical sites, makes it viable to consider its use from a tourist point of view. Furthermore, the stations, in the Neo-Mudéjar style and with a unified stylistic line, still conserve the ancient splendour of times past and have an unquestionable charm that makes the line as a whole even more attractive.

Category A1.
Electrified track with concrete sleepers in good condition.