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 abandoned Baranja sugar factory
Šećerana, (Croatia)

Located in the region of Baranja in Croatia, Šećerana is a settlement of 559 inhabitants near Beli Manastir. Today forgotten and half destroyed, the old Baranja Sugar factory has been built in 1898 and became a state company in 1906. Funded with...

The Alstom's abandoned thermal power plant
Montréal, Quebec (Canada)

Sold for $ 1 in 2004 in exchange of the promise to clean up the heavily polluted soil, the land of more than 3.5 million square feet has not found its commercial and residential purpose promised by March Group, the current owner. However, when...

Silos
Montréal, Quebec (Canada)

Built in the early twentieth century, the former Canada Malting plant has a dozen gigantic silos of 37 meters high. The oldest was built in 1905. Hundreds of employees worked there after the Second World War, until the closure of the factory at...

The old Conveyor dock's tower
Montréal, Quebec (Canada)

So you might think the old Conveyor dock's tower straight out of the fourteenth century, but you're wrong. The pier on which it is located was built in 1956-1957 and was one of the last marine works at the port of Montreal before it does change...