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A tour of the railways |
"Ferrocarrils
de Mallorca"
La first locomotive of the Pla train, the most modern, high-performance
means of transport of its time
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The first railway line in Majorca, from
Palma to Inca, was officially opened in February 1875.
The company promoting the line, Ferrocarril de Mallorca,
had been founded in 1872 and soon afterwards, in 1876,
changed its name to Ferrocarils de Mallorca, on merging
with another company, Ferrocarrils del Centre i Sud-Est
de Mallorca.
The network grew rapidly: In 1878 the railway reached both Sineu and
Sa Pobla and by 1879 it had been extended as far as Manacor. In 1897
the branch line from Santa Maria to Felanitx was opened, and in 1917
the line from Palma to Santanyi started operating.
In 1921 the railway reached Artà. In that
year Mallorca boasted over 200 kilometres of track.
However, the negative financial results, which were
quite considerable in the fifties, hastened the purchase
of the shares of the company by the state and its
incorporation into the state-run company FEVE in
1964. With the aim of cutting costs, the lines to
Santanyí (1964), Felanitx (1967), Manacor
and Artà (1977) and sa Pobla were closed.
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Project for the Palma station, the work of engineer Pere Garau
Cañellas at the
beginning of the century
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In 1994, following the transfer of competence to the Autonomous
Community, the company Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca (SFM)
was set up.
The consolidation of the number of passengers on the Palma to Inca line
and the increasing demand for public transport, especially as an alternative
to the saturated road network, favoured the recovery of hitherto abandoned
lines. As a result, in 2000 the line from Inca to Sa Pobla was reopened
and the line from Inca to Manacor followed suit in 2003.
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