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 old Terken brewery
Roubaix, (France)

Destroyed in 2004, the Terken brewery was a huge industrial complex of more than four hectares. Located in the Union area in Roubaix, near Lille, the factory was, at one time, a symbol of "close symbiosis" between the company and its community...

The abandoned Stelfil plant in Lachine
Lachine, Quebec (Canada)

Victim of the globalization of markets, the history of Stelfil Ltd. has suddenly stopped on March 28, 2008 for the factory and its hundred employees. The company has been decorated in 2002 in the Great manufacturing company category by the...

Geo W. Reed plant - Photo by Pierre Bourgault
Montréal, Quebec (Canada)

No doubt, this is a mysterious building. There is no reliable information about this abandoned building on the Internet. Impossible to corroborate the details found here and there. Indeed, even the name of the building can’t be confirmed. While...

The abandoned cement factory of Los Santos
Los Santos, (Spain)

When I was a kid, I often traveled with my parents and my brothers in Los Santos, the village where I was born. Each time when we approached, my father used to say: "Beware, I will give a penny to the first one who will see the smoke of the plant...