Stories of Cabeceiras

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.

João Pacheco, no Arco de Baúlhe, and Luziário Pereira de Magalhães, with their son António, in Refojos, are protagonists in the investigation of the Museum on lattice. The workshop of Luziário and António was in the Beco dos Ofícios; the nearby fair was the main point of sale. Teresa Soeiro relates the decline of craft with the diffusion of aluminum and plastic.

The inventory brings this work closer to everyday gestures: the MTB 241 copper mug served to make coffee, the MTB 240 cantara contained water and the lamps lit. The functions are documented for identified pieces. Knowing the objects helps to understand the workshop, but the collection does not confirm that these craftsmen or establishments continue in activity.

Teresa Soeiro's investigation gave rise to the exhibition The Art of lattice in Cabeceiras de Basto, in the Museum's facilities in Arco de Baúlhe. The work retreated to the artisans who began using white iron, or flander leaf, at the beginning of the Modern Era. The collection of the last professional routes was thus linked to a longer history of materials.

The objects reveal the variety of tasks: lighting a house, transporting wine, watering plants or storing oil for a locomotive. The craft passed through the house, field and transport. Comparing these functions helps to discover metallurgical work in gestures that seem to belong to separate worlds.

The station also has a memory made of flowers. The museum publication describes its rose gardens and recalls the distinction it received in 1962 as Portugal’s most flower-filled station.

Alongside machines and rails, the garden adds another way to see the place: a station’s landscape includes what grows around it. The award belongs to the history of the site; it is not a current rating of the gardens.

On 21 March 2023, users of the Espaços de Convívio e Lazer in Arco de Baúlhe and Vila Nune joined the initiative As plantas do nosso Jardim. At the railway museum they planted an orange tree in the leisure area and aromatic plants in a bed. The municipal report reveals another side of the museum: a place for meeting and participation. It describes that planting, without guaranteeing that all the plants survive today.

In a March 2016 announcement, the museum recalled an aromatic-herb project created in 2013 at the Arco de Baúlhe railway museum. For that month it proposed planting new aromatic plants and two fruit trees with children from the school centre and users of the day centre. The garden bed connected the museum with environmental education. The source documents the project and announced programme, without confirming the garden’s current composition.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Numa publicação de agosto de 2025, o Museu recorda o serviço de mercadorias que circulava à quarta-feira na Linha do Tâmega, em 1984. Era associado à locomotiva E 165, fabricada pela Henschel & Sohn em 1908. A imagem postal usada pelo Museu foi feita em Celorico de Basto: documenta a linha, não a estação do Arco.

The support is a postcard from the Portuguese Association of Friends of the Iron Paths, dated 1984. There are three times to distinguish: the construction of the machine, the service remembered in the postcard and the publication of the Museum. The document does not describe the load of each trip.

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.

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.

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 Basto Land Museum opened to the public in 23 May 2004, located at the station of Arco de Baúlhe. Its presentation of the Documentation Center distinguishes two funds: the municipal and the Railway Center, belonging to the National Railway Museum Foundation and kept by the local museum.

Books, journals, photographs, maps and archive documents help to investigate the region. The description recalls the organization of the collection in 2011; it is not a confirmation of current consultation conditions.

In February 2011, the Museum also announced the conference and inventory of railway objects, based on the inventory of CP technicians included in the 2000 protocol.

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.