[2] On 13 May 1904, a decree was published ordering studies to be carried out for the installation of the Vila Real de Santo António station, on the site that had been preferred by the population.

The section between Tavira and Vila Real de Santo António entered service on 14 April 1906 and was then considered part of the South Line.

[6][7] However, the inauguration was criticised in an article published in Tavira's O Heraldo newspaper, which accused the government of having opened the line to traffic before it was completely finished, in order to benefit political circles in the eastern Algarve.

According to the article, the Vila Real de Santo António railway station entered service without meeting the necessary conditions for its functions, and the houses for the staff, the remise and the turntable, among other infrastructures, had yet to be built.

[8] Vila Real de Santo António's first station was located in an area that was then far from the city and the river, so that an international bridge could be built in the future to connect it to the Spanish railway network.