Stories of Cabeceiras

The station panels were executed in 1940 by A. Lopes, at the Sant’Anna Ceramic Factory in Lisbon, according to the publication of the Basto Land Museum. They are prior to the opening of the station in 1949.

The station was a set of spaces with different functions. The publication identifies the driver's house, the staff building, the loading and unloading dock and the dispatch warehouse. The two stalls started to host permanent exhibitions of railway equipment; the warehouse is described as temporary exhibition space.

Reading the building can begin with these differences: where were they working, where were goods passing and where were they stored? The tiles are part of this built landscape. The description documents the museological organization presented in the publication, without confirming the exhibition or access of each space today.

Built in Belgium in 1908, the van DE.FV 506 is presented by the Museum as a narrow-track vehicle for goods, parcels and postal mail. It had plate coating, electric lighting and a toilet for the employee, accessible from the outside. The acquisition by the Company of Guimarães Railways appears as hypothesis. The description of the collection, published in 2011, does not confirm the current exhibition of the piece.

The gauge indicated by the Museum is one meter. In comparison with the car, the function changes: ME5 was intended for passengers, while this van gathered cargo, parcels and mail. Traveling on the same network could mean transporting people, news or goods.

According to the retrospective of the Museum, the Arc station ceased to operate in January 1990, with the closure of the section between Amarante and Arco de Baúlhe. In 8 January 2000, a protocol between REFER and the Municipality opened the way for the provision of facilities and the museological dynamics. The opening of the Museum, in 23 May 2004, belongs to this new life of space.

The compromise brought responsibilities: the Municipality was responsible for preserving, maintaining and managing the section, in collaboration with the National Railway Museum Foundation. The news of the Museum of April 2025 also reports the municipal decision of February 14 of that year to classify the whole. The change of use involved, therefore, agreements and continued work, in addition to the opening of doors to the public.

The ME5 motor vehicle carried a petrol engine to the rails. The publication on the museum located its construction in the Santa Apolónia workshops in 1948. In the same collection, it describes a steam locomotive manufactured in Germany in 1908.

The dates are forty years and allow comparing two technologies. They are dates of construction of vehicles, not of arrival at the station. The collection gathers pieces from various origins; being in the museum does not show, by itself, where each one circulated.

The Basto Land Museum identifies the engine as Chevrolet and describes the passenger space: 11 first-class seats, 16 third-class and other 16 standing, as well as sanitary facilities. The 27 seating positions shall not be confused with all available positions.

The National Railway Museum explains that a single motor vehicle sought to reduce the costs of operation in lines of low traffic, bringing together functions that required a composition. The project, directed by the engineer Vasco Viana, took advantage of characteristics of road transport. The same record says that the use of gasoline proved costly and led to temporary or extraordinary uses.

The inventory adds a link to the local history: this ME5 will have circulated in the Line of Tâmega. The formulation is prudent and so remains. It is a specific documentary track, different from deducing the circulation just because the vehicle is in the collection today.

Before reaching Cabeceiras, the line had to cross the valley of the river of Veade. The bridge of Matamá is in the Union of the Freguesies of Veade, Gagos and Molares, in Celorico of Basto. According to the Museum, its six granite arches form a structure about 190 meters long and 52 meters high.

The report distinguishes two moments: the opening of the bridge in 5 June 1936, and the entry into railway use in 15 January 1949, with the opening of the Celorico section of Basto–Arco de Baúlhe. Having the bridge built did not immediately mean having trains arriving at the Arc. This regional history helps to realize the time needed to complete the connection.

The report of the Museum attributes the responsibility of the work to engineers Jorge Vieira Bastian and Manuel Gonçalves Costa. The dimension of the structure helps to realize the challenge of taking the railway through the valley; the chronology allows to separate this work from the entry into service of the complete connection.

The last vehicle of the train carried important information. The Museum features a red-light taillight, used at night in the last carriage or wagon to indicate that the composition was complete. Its function was to signal, not to illuminate the path ahead of the locomotive.

The registration N.1 AND POST. OF THE BOOK connects the object to the station of Livração, in the line of the Valley of Tâmega. Reading the piece implies joining three clues: the color of the light, the position on the train and the inscription associating it to a place.

This small object shows that the railway history is also made of discrete signs and tasks. The presentation of the Museum, published in June 2024, describes the use and station to which the lighthouse was affected; it does not indicate a date of manufacture for the piece.

In February 2024, the Museum described a hexagonal platform lamp, intended to light docks. Inside it had an oil lamp, with glass chimney and metallic reservoir. The description does not identify the station where this piece was used.

The reservoir had the inscription MD MOVING. This detail belongs to the object described; it does not provide, alone, a station of origin. Compare it to the taillight: both produce light, but the lamp illuminates the embarkation space and the lighthouse communicates information about the composition.

The Tâmega Line channel retained a connecting function after trains. In 20 of April 2013 was inaugurated the section of the Ecopista in the municipality, between the Railway Center of Arco de Baúlhe and Dead Woman, in Vila Nune. The municipal record indicates 5,4 kilometers in this section, within the most extensive link to Amarante.

The relief of the route holds the railway origin: the municipal description relates the old channel with a maximum inclination of 3%. It is a published feature of the layout, not a current check of each entry or obstacle. To prepare an exit, see the practical form and the on-site indications.

The old station and the villager of Vila Nune tell different parts of this story. The municipality identifies the camper among the heritage of Vila Nune; in the Arc, the station passed the museological core. A path can change its use without losing the references that help to recognize its past.

The journey began at Livração, where the Line of Tâmega connected to the Douro Line, and ended at Arco de Baúlhe. According to the Municipality, the construction of this narrow track line extended from 1908 to 1949, along about 52 kilometers. The arrival at the Arc was the result of a link built in stages.

The station had functions beyond the shipment of passengers: the old warehouse of dispatches, today used for temporary exhibitions, also recalls the circulation of goods. Visiting the railway core allows you to look for these different lives of the same space: transporting people, receiving cargoes and preserving stories.

The Visit Cabeceiras portal highlights a third-class British carriage of 1876 at the Railway Nucleus. The class number and date help to locate the object: it is a 19th-century piece, long before the line arrived at Arco de Baúlhe. The presence in the collection does not mean that it was built for this station.

The municipal publication identifies this piece as Cefv 79 and presents it as the oldest carriage in the collection described there. In the same stall, it refers to a passenger carriage built in Belgium in 1908.

The inventory mark helps distinguish the object; the class refers to its function in passenger transport. The origin of manufacture, service provided and arrival at the museum are separate questions: these sources do not reconstitute all carriage trips.

A locomotive needed maintenance, and the inventory of the museum conserves a clue of this work: the AB 295C rail station, of the Railway Center of Arco de Baúlhe. It was made of zinc plate, stored three liters of oil and was intended for lubrication of parts of the locomotive.

The chart records 34,5 cm in height and 18 in diameter. These measures help imagine the scale of the container next to the large machines. The inventory identifies the function and the object, but not the concrete locomotive in which it was used nor its current exposure.

The report of 1956 describes people arriving on the roads, on buses and trains. Alameda do Seco and the garden of Praça da República concentrated the movement. Barroso products and blankets joined the fair: the meeting connected territories and transports.

In the excerpts gathered by the Museum, the fair is also an occasion to present animals and debut clothes. The text evokes joints of ox ornamented with flowers on the way to the livestock contest and lists aprons, handkerchiefs, skirts, blouses and slippers. The party gathered work, trade and public presentation.

It is a journalistic description, with expressive language and a proper look at people. It helps to imagine the environment, but it does not measure how many visitors arrived or allows to treat all habits described as universal.

In the description of 1956 published by the Museum, the food establishments and tents were filled. Regional wine accompanied new lunches or chestnuts, served in glassy white clay mugs. They are details of a chronicle that brings the fair closer to its daily gestures.

The table appears in the middle of a moving fair. The chronicle evokes groups crossing paths, buses and trains, blankets coming from Barroso and the arrival of people in the Alameda do Seco and the Praça da República. Eating and drinking were part of this meeting, alongside the trade, the religious festival and the livestock contest.

There are two dates to be kept: the quoted text came out in the newspaper in 16 September 1956; the Museum re-disclosed it in 26 September 2024. The excerpt has the expressive language of a chronicle, does not present visitor counts or meals sold. By comparing it with the memory of dried nuts in crops, we discover the same fruit in different occasions and forms of conservation.

The station also has a memory made of flowers. The publication of the museum describes the gardens of roses and recalls the distinction received in 1962 as the most florida season in Portugal.

Next to the machines and rails, the garden adds another way of looking at the place: the landscape of a season includes what grows around it. The prize belongs to the history of space; it is not a current classification of the gardens.