Rusty wagons of the Piscinas narrow-gauge railway

The southwest of Sardinia was shaped by mining for centuries. In Piscinas, in the middle of the dune landscape of the Costa Verde, there used to be a loading station for shipping ores. In the mountains near Ingurtosu, mineral resources such as lead or zinc were extracted from the mines at the Miniera di Naracauli, washed and transported to the sea by a narrow-gauge railway.

On the road to Piscinas beach, you pass through the “Palace of the Mine Management” in a short tunnel in the village of Ingurtosu. Further down the valley, you pass the spoil heaps and abandoned ruins of the extraction facilities and ore washing plants. Once you reach the valley floor of the Rio Naracauli, the road turns into a gravel track and partly follows the old railway line used to transport the rock the few kilometres to the sea for shipping. Today, the old buildings on the beach have been converted into the hotel Le Dune in an exclusive location. On the former railway line behind the hotel, some rusty tipper wagons and scrap parts of the locomotive have stood on a last preserved section of track for many years. They brave the wind, weather and vandalism.

More pictures in the ‘Sardinia’ gallery.