Date Published: 06/06/2024
Restoration and improvement work underway at Aguilas railway museum
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Work is continuing apace on the recovery, restoration and enhancement of the Águilas Railway Museum’s collections
You can’t tell the
history of Águilas without its railways. Trains and their tracks were an integral part of growing the town’s economy in the 19th and early 20th centuries as they were used to transport valuable mineral deposits from the mines of Granada and Almería to the coast, where they were loaded onto British ships ready for export.
The fascinating story of how the railways helped link Águilas to Britain and the world is told at the
Railway Museum, which is currently being refurbished and restored.
Águilas’s Railway Museum has been closed for over a year now while intensive and vital restoration work is underway to ensure that the facilities and the exhibits are properly preserved.
This week, Águilas’s Councillor for Culture, José Antonio Consentino, accompanied by the regional deputy Juan Andrés Torres and other members of the municipal corporation, visited the facilities housing the Railway Museum to supervise the restoration work of the pieces that will be exhibited in it.
It is the first floor of the town’s railway station which houses this museum, and it was transferred into public ownership after an agreement signed between Águilas Town Council and the Association of Friends of the Railway, which formerly ran the museum.
Once it is reopened, the museum will exhibit pieces related to the railway, which are currently in the process of being restored by local professional Miguel Ángel Gallardo.
“After cataloguing the pieces, which will be exhibited and grouped by families, we are now beginning the restoration of those that are the most damaged,” explained Gallardo.
This rehabilitation and enhancement work is being financed entirely with municipal funds from the coffers of Águilas Town Council, in order to preserve the town’s history while managing to extract value from these historical pieces and educate people about their important role for the history of the municipality.
The museum space was already adapted to house this museum through a subsidy of 40,000 euros from the Directorate General for Tourism Competitiveness, to which a further 7,000 euros was added by the municipality of Águilas.
The bulk of the work has consisted of improving the accessibility of this space by installing an elevator to facilitate access for people with reduced mobility, putting in air conditioning and recovering the original wooden ceiling.
In addition, when it does reopen, the museum will have information panels in Spanish and English to be able to communicate the importance of the history of the railways in Águilas to museumgoers of different nationalities.
Image: Ayuntamiento de Águilas
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