Great Southern of Spain Railway

Locomotive No 130-2124 plate

Building El Hornillo Pier, Águilas, ca. 1902

The Great Southern of Spain Railway (GSSR) was a British railway company that operated in southern Spain between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. It owned two railway lines: the Lorca-Baza and the Almendricos-Águilas, developing an important activity in the transport of minerals.

History

Consession and concessions

This company was incorporated on 15th of December 1885. It was set up to connect the provinces of Murcia, Almería and Granada with a railway from Águilas and Lorca (in Murcia province) to Granada, passing through the Almanzora Valley and Baza.

The operating concession for the Granada-Murcia line was awarded in 1885 to the British entrepreneur Edmund Sykes Hett, who transferred it to the GSSR in 1887. This very simple sentence is far from giving an accurate representation of the very complex and subtle tractations, deals, compromises, negociations, etc. involved in the process of attributing concessions. The 1840s in particular were marred by speculation and corruption around such concessions.

Thus, concession 3 was authorised in July 1870 and that same month E. S. Hett paid the deposit allowing him to bid for it. In October 1881 the company Crédito General de Ferrocarriles S.A. makes a petition to be given the concession 3; this request is rejected. In August 1884, the Murcia – Lorca section of the line is removed from concession 3 because Crédito General de Ferrocarriles S.A. has already constructed a line. In November 1884, the auction for concession 3 is announced and its tariffs and fares are set out. In March 1885 E. S. Hett gets concession 3 – and for some unknown reason he is the sole bidder...

The lines

The Hett, Maylor Company Ltd was set up as a construction company to build the line, and engaged itself with the new GSSR Limited. But it grossly underestimated the difficulties and costs of going through the rough mountainous grounds, and unknowingly signed its own demise with a contract binding it to a fixed price. Moreover, a subcontractor caused trouble and cost them money. In 1890, Hett, Maylor & Co went bankrupt. At that stage, the section Lorca - Almendricoa - Águilas was running, as well as the section Almendricos - Huércal-Overa; the section Huércal-Overa - Zurgena was built but not yet officially approved; and the rest of the line to Granada was inexistent. Another company had built the Murcia - Lorca section. And GSSR was left with the whole sierra de Los Filabres and sierra de Baza to go through. Eventually, the GSSR had to undergo a restructuring; and it took the railway only as far as Baza, just one step over the border in Granada province.

The state railway operator Renfe managed that railway until 31st of December 1984. But during that decade, many lines were closed including the GSSR's because of the disastrous state of the railway infrastructure and the lack of money; however the section Águilas to Lorca and Murcia was kept open up until January 2022, with the support from Águilas council.

See also

Bibliography

• Cuéllar Villar, Domingo (2009). "Y Stephenson dijo no: Los capitales británicos en los ferrocarriles españoles" (PDF). Actas del V Congreso De Historia Ferrviaria, Palma de Mallorca. Retrieved April 18, 2025.

External links

• "Great Southern of Spain Railway". gssr.es. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
• "The Great Southern of Spain Railway (The GSSR)". faydon.com. Retrieved April 18, 2025.