The abandoned train that circulated again on the Azambuja Line

Photo courtesy of Filipe Fernandes (@visual_rail)

The same CP that once turned its back on old equipment, leaving it abandoned around the country as a SIC news report showedhas been recovering some of these old trains in order to get them running again. Some of this rolling stock was in relatively good condition before it was scrapped.

This is the case of the 3525 electric car, composed of four double-decker vehicles, which returned this week to the Azambuja Line. The train, the same as the ones that run that route daily but which had been abandoned for seven years in Campolide, was restored inside and out at CP's workshops in Entroncamento, an investment, according to Lusa, of about a million euros - accounts done, "Portugal will have saved between 6 and 8 million euros, which is how much an automobile like this costs"shared José Carlos Barbosa, CP's Director of Maintenance and Engineering, in his LinkedIn.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CMfCbfynQL_/

Those who follow José Carlos Barbosa's profile on LinkedIn or in Twitter will be aware of the effort that CP has been making in recent months to recover discarded material. The plan is simple: give a new life to this material, improving the national railway service while it is not possible to modernize the fleet, and save money. From the workshops in Guifões, Contumil, Entroncamento and Barreiro, trains have already left as new for lines all over the country, including four trainsets to reinforce the Sintra Linealso in Lisbon.

This image illustrates the work of rolling stock recovery that has been carried out by #cp in the last 18 months. Abandoned material that was recovered in the workshops in Guifões, Contumil, Entroncamento and Barreiro. pic.twitter.com/F5tufrsQje
- Pedro Nuno Santos (@PNSpedronuno) February 15, 2021

Back to the Azambuja Line. According to LusaThe train that was put back into circulation received new sidewalk, the seats were covered, and the exterior painting was done - it still had the original green color. Technical improvements were also made, at the level of electronic equipment, climate control, and braking system, preparing this train for 15-20 years of service.

This recovered car joins the ten that, since 1999, circulate in Lisbon's urban belt. There is one more in the family, which was also berthed in Campolide and is now in the workshop. Their delivery is scheduled for next May, by which time all 12 units of the fleet should be operational.

But if I tell you that these two trains, which cost about €6 million each, were running on the Azambuja line, one of the most overcrowded lines in Portugal, you will probably have even more difficulty in understanding the decision.
- José Carlos Barbosa (@zecarlosbarbosa) March 16, 2021

CP data from the pre-pandemic period, cited by Lusa, indicate that on the Sintra/Azambuja Line traveled, in 2019, about 69 million passengersan average of 200 thousand passengers per weekday. According to José Carlos Barbosa, CP's Maintenance and Engineering director, the Azambuja Line is one of the most overcrowded in Portugal.

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Mário Rui André

Journalist and editor of Lisboa Para Pessoas, a local newspaper about Lisbon and the metropolitan area. I have 30 years living in the capital and 10 years of experience in media, having co-founded Shifter, an independent and reference magazine about technology. I studied advertising and marketing at the Escola Superior de Comunicação Social and, later, journalism and communication at the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra. I write about Lisbon and about cities, mobility and urbanism in general. I follow a more human vision of the public space, and I am for citizenship and transparency on the part of governing bodies.