| The Sierra Railway, which was to run from Jerez de la Frontera to Almargen, was a project conceived at the turn of the 20th century. It had been the dream of generations of people living in the Guadalete basin and on the higher land near Olvera.
The military were also keen to have a railway link between their bases at Cartagena and Cadiz. With the blessing of all, work began swiftly under the auspices of dictator General Primo de Rivera. The Spanish Civil War brought the work to a halt, and once the war was over the austere post-war years were not the best time to re-launch the project. Finally, in the mid-sixties, the project was finally and definitively abandoned following a report from the World Bank. All the stations, tunnels, and viaducts had been built but no tracks had ever been laid.
Of the 119 kilometres of this vast project, only 21 kilometres from Jerez to the Jédula sugar plant ever went into operation. Tracks were laid as far as Arcos de la Frontera but only test trains ever ran on them. A family of railway workers lived for a few years in the station buildings as if waiting for a train that was never to arrive . |
