The old Minas de Riotinto locomotives
The old Minas de Riotinto locomotives

The old Minas de Riotinto locomotives

The old Minas de Riotinto locomotives

Martian landscape in the heart of Spain

Minas de Riotinto, Spain

We are talking about over 5000 years of mining history in this area. The landscape has been changed forever, and it looks at some places like a alien planet where red, yellow, purple mingle with green, gray and ocher.

The ten abandoned trains account that the site today are only a small part of this industrial landscape that has been suddenly stopped in 1974. At its peak, there was more than 150 trains who were traversing the long and winding road which stretched over 84 km. Each train had between 20 and 50 cars full of pyrite.

The mine located in the town of Minas de Riotinto, as we know it today, began operating in 1875 and stopped almost 100 years later. Today, if the plant is closed, a museum exists on the site.

Related content

The Buzludzha monument
Buzludzha, (Bulgaria)
A historical brief

We are in Bulgaria, a small state of Central Europe who joined the European Union in 2007 and still relatively unknown outside its touristy areas of the Black Sea.

The construction of the building began in 1974 and the...

The neurons poet's abandoned plant
Montréal, Quebec (Canada)

The plant itself is definitively not as great at we saw in other places. Located in the heart of Pointe-Saint-Charles neighborhood of Montreal, this two storey building has no longer the cachet of its heyday. While neighboring buildings are...

The abandoned Hipster hotel
Montréal, Quebec (Canada)

Built in 1976, not much remains of this former 148 rooms hotel. In fact, apart from a concrete structure and graffitis, there is only industrial waste. The building has 18 floors and looks like an old white elephant amidst a changing neighborhood...

The train cemetery in Uyuni, Bolivia
Uyuni, (Bolivia)

It is at Uyuni, a small town of just over 10,000 inhabitants located more than 3,670 meters above sea level that can be found one of the most famous train cemetery. Well, we must also say that the world's largest salty desert is located in Uyuni...