The Valencian Government, through the Department of Territorial Policy, Public Works and Mobility, will sign an agreement with the Alicante City Council and the Fundación de Ferrocarriles Españoles (FFE) to collaborate in the Project of the Railway Museum in the Valencian Community, which will have its headquarters in the city of Alicante.
With the aim of articulating this collaboration, the general director of Public Works, Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Roser Obrer, has met with the Councillor for Urban Planning and Heritage of the City Council, Adrián Santos, and the managing director of the Fundación de Ferrocarriles Españoles, José Carlos Domínguez Curiel.
This meeting was also attended by the Regional Minister for Territorial Policy, Arcadi España, highlighting that, “coinciding with the celebration of the European Year of the Railroad, it is undoubtedly the time to value a more sustainable mobility both for the transportation of goods and people “.
For the head of Transport of the Consell, “this initiative of a Railway Museum is the clear commitment of the Generalitat to claim this mode of transport that is part of our history, but that must be an essential element of the mobility of our present and future”. In addition, he added, “it is not only a commitment of the Generalitat for the railroad and in this case, also, for Alicante, which, for the first time, the city will be the headquarters of a national museum”.
The new Railway Museum in the Valencian Community, promoted by these three entities, will be installed in warehouses annexed to the Casa del Mediterráneo in Alicante and will have as its objective “the preservation and dissemination of railway memory and historical railway material, and, in particular, in relation to the one that will be part of the project to create the Museum at the headquarters of the town of Alicante.
Through this collaboration agreement, the Generalitat, the Alicante City Council, and the FFE express their interest in collaborating in all the activities and events that are necessary for the restoration, exhibition and use of historical railway material, in particular, of which use will be made of an endowment of historical railway material.
For the beginning of this collection, the FFE will give in favour of the Alicante City Council, the use and temporary storage of a historical vehicle, the Mikado locomotive. 141F-2401. This locomotive belongs to a series built for Renfe by various manufacturers between 1953 and 1960, which provided service throughout the Spanish network until 1975, the date of the official closure of steam in Spain, and is representative of the last series of steam locomotives built in our country, which was also the last series to serve in the steam era.
Likewise, to expand the provision of the future Railway Museum in Alicante, the three parties involved express their willingness to cede the temporary use and storage of other historical railway vehicles.
