Barreiro is a railway station on the Alentejo Line that serves as a connection between rail services on the South Bank of the Tagus and Soflusa's river transport to Lisbon, Portugal.

[1] On July 24, 1854, the government signed a contract with the Marquis of Ficalho and José Maria Eugénio de Almeida, who set up a partnership for the construction of a railway from the south bank to Vendas Novas, starting in Montijo (a locality at the time still known as Aldeia Galega do Ribatejo).

[2] Although the station was considered to have ideal conditions for train service, it was built about 2 km away from the river pier at Mexilhoeiro, hindering mobility of passengers and goods between the two points.

[35] At the end of the 19th century, the station and its warehouses underwent expansion works, due to fears that the Cacilhas branch line, which was being planned at the time, would lead to a reduction in rail traffic.

[22] Still, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Barreiro station had several structural problems, such as the river docks having no protection and suffering frequent flooding on rainy days.

[38] In 1901, Companhia União Fabril built a chemical complex in Barreiro, which was connected to the station by a branch line called "Ramal Particular das Lezírias".

[40] On December 1 of that year, the Gazeta dos Caminhos de Ferro reported that the Siemens & Halske company was to be contracted to install the electricity supply.

[42] On 1 April 1903, the Gazeta dos Caminhos de Ferro reported that the materials and mechanisms for installing small portable compressed-air machine tools had arrived and assembly was about to begin.

[43] On February 1, 1908, the royal family passed through the Barreiro station during their trip from the Alentejo to Lisbon and suffered an attack shortly after leaving the Terreiro do Paço Fluvial Terminal.

[5] In 1920, there was a large increase in the number of rolling stock at Barreiro due to strikes, so the new head of the Material and Traction Service, Oliveira Cabral, drew up a new project to expand the workshops.

[5] Since by then there was a shortage of rolling stock to meet demand on the southern and southeastern lines, the board used this preliminary project as the basis for a public tender in March 1921.

[5] Order of July 21 of that year authorized the State Railroad Board to contract the company William Beardmore and Co. for the supply of materials for the construction of the general workshops at Barreiro.

[5] About a year later, on 27 September 1922, information from the administrative commission was approved by the council of ministers, which proposed that the works for the new Barreiro workshops be awarded to the company William Beardmore for £203,867.

[5] In March 1924, when the board of directors of the Caminhos de Ferro had already been resumed, they ordered the works to be halted, since it had been informed that to build the new workshops on that site it would be necessary to close the old facilities for about two years.

[5] This commission, formed by the engineers Costa Serrão, Carlos Albers, Duro Sequeira, and Perpétuo da Cruz, concluded that the Beardmore company project was so large that it could only be realized if the old workshops were shut down, and that the available space was not sufficient for the new facilities.

[5] The minister agreed with this report and ordered the management of South and Southeast to draw up two projects, one according to the commission's conclusions, and another where the new workshops would be installed on the embankment between Barreiro and Lavradio.

[5] A second commission was formed, consisting of the engineers Carlos Albers, Duro Sequeira, Zacarias Santana, Rodrigo Monteiro, and Eugénio Amaral, to give their opinion on the two hypotheses.

[54] Following this process, a third commission was created in December, formed by engineers Duro Sequeira, Júlio José dos Santos and Mário Costa, representing the state, and Ferreira de Mesquita and Jorge Malheiro.

[5] The main bet for the location of the central workshops was, at that time, in Contumil Station, although this would lead to the largest locomotives having to be dismounted to cross the Maria Pia Bridge, due to the significant weight limitations of that structure.

[5] The Gazeta dos Caminhos de Ferro stated that it would be impossible to build the new complex on the embankment due to the large number of chemical gases expelled by the Companhia União Fabril's factories, which would be toxic to workers and corrosive to metals, including tools and structures.

[55] It was believed that no expansion works would be needed soon since the new workshops had already been planned to repair twenty locomotives simultaneously, and a larger capacity would not be necessary due to the crisis the railroads were going through at the time.

[67] For the construction of the avenue and the new workshops, the railway complex area was profoundly modified, with several warehouse and office buildings having been demolished, and new platforms for unloading passengers and goods being built.

On April 9, 1935, the Direcção Geral de Caminhos de Ferro ordered the chief engineer of the construction division, Rodrigo Severiano do Vale Monteiro, to sign on behalf of the Minister of Public Works a contract with Sociedade de Construções Metálicas for the construction of a transformer station and a compressor room, the demolition of a small building housing the machinists' school, the staff private box and a medical post, the modification of the interior of the central offices building, and the construction of a washbasin and a porch between the east façades of the central offices building and the west of the new general workshops.

[68] The station's building also underwent major modifications: new spans were opened, while the eastern side was lined with white tiles; the installation of two panels alluding to the Alentejo and Algarve regions was planned.

[68] All works at the Barreiro complex were paid for by the Special Railway Fund and managed by the Companhia dos Caminhos de Ferro Portugueses and employed several hundred workers.

[73] On 6 January 1937, the General Directorate of Railways issued various orders for contracts to purchase equipment for the Barreiro workshops: On the same day, decrees were also issued to approve the construction of the washroom and general workshops, whose contract had been awarded to the Sociedade de Construções Metálicas, and to award the Siemens firm a complete chrome, nickel, oxidizing, and copper-plating plant.

[83] On 19 March 1959, Estaleiros Navais de Viana do Castelo was contracted to build 2 boats for the river services between Lisbon and Barreiro, as part of the Second Incentive Plan.

[88] From the late 1960s, there was a large increase in the number of women on the staff of the Companhia dos Caminhos de Ferro Portugueses, which began a program to build nursery schools at its stations, including Barreiro.

[21] With the commissioning of the new station, the old railway terminal was closed and went into abandonment, a situation that was criticized by the Barreiro City Council in 2010, as they wanted to preserve the structure.

[...] The steamer gives the signal, and the first puffs of smoke from its wheels, like a smoker's spit, the instant a frigate passes close to the pier, with a kind of sea god astern, pulling the sail... - Fialho de Almeida, Os Gatos, pp.