Entering an abandoned village in Spain along the Rio Tinto.   The railroad was shut down in the 1960s.  Gauge is 1000 millimeters (1 meter).

    Morgan and I were in Spain & Portugal the last week of April. We took some photos that you may want to use in the future. In short, we flew to Malaga in Southern Spain and rented a car.  We drove around and biked for a full week in southwest Spain and southeast Portugal. All the plants seemed to be in blossom, and we had a great time. These are wonderful countries to visit even without

railbikes.

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     Morgan had a derailment (mechanical failure) and injured in his hand (8 stitches). He is all recovered and says he enjoys having a scar with such an unusual background. Something to one day brag about at the Home for the Aged.

Above and right:

Scenes in Portugal.

Gauge is 1640 mm

(so-called

Iberian wide gauge).

Right:  Rail bent from heat.  We encountered several of these which

caused a couple of derailments.  Below:

Overheated railbiker cools off in a creek

leading into the Rio Tinto.

Right:  The station in Machados, Portugal, is about

1 kilometer from the town and

connected to the village by a paving-stone road.

Right:  Parked in

downtown Sousel, Portugal for a cold drink.

Below and Right:  Lunch under a spreading shade tree and a temporarily disabled railbiker gets a remedy at a village restaurant in Portugal.

Above:  Note the gates at the intersection.  They were manually operated to block road traffic from approaching trains.  This location is

in Santa Susana, Portugal.  Right:

The Rio Tinto - imagine it were Vino Tinto!  The red coloring is the result

of  local iron mining.

Above:  We stop to watch turtles in a small pond in Portugal.  Left:  Switch in

Sousel, Portugal. 

The mechanism is inboard

the rails which is normal in

Europe but this one also had

a leaf-spring.  Exactly how it

operated is a question.