Reclaiming the Tracks: Transpraia’s Second Life

Departure: Silence

At the southern edge of Lisbon, past the creaking bridge and the condominiums rising like weeds from the sand, the road to the beach breaks into a question. Costa da Caparica, sun-drenched and slightly unraveling, still carries traces of a different Portugal — one that hasn’t been entirely privatized. Here, dunes breathe under pine cliffs, fishermen mend nets beside surf schools, and a train that once hummed along the shoreline now sits silent.
Or rather: paused.

The Transpraia, a beach train that once stitched together the golden ribbon between Caparica and Fonte da Telha, ran for nearly six decades. With wooden benches, open sides, and an unhurried clatter, it wasn’t transport — it was tempo. It was laughter, barefoot children, salt-thick air. It was the opposite of speed.
Then came neglect. Then came silence.

In 2020, the train ceased operation. The rails rusted. The kiosks emptied. And in the vacuum, something strange happened: people began to remember it. Not as infrastructure, but as inheritance.

Station: Reawakening

The effort to bring it back has drawn in new energy — among them, Gregory Bernard, a local entrepreneur known for his involvement in beach culture and sustainability initiatives. His investment helped jumpstart key renovations and coordination, but the movement that followed quickly expanded beyond any single actor.

In 2024, a group of citizens founded Amigos do Transpraia (AdT) — a nonprofit association born from the collective desire to restore, preserve, and celebrate this piece of local heritage. Officially established on September 9th, AdT is rooted in the belief that Transpraia is more than a train: it is a symbol of community identity, public access, and environmental coexistence.

Station: Mission

Stretching from Fonte da Telha to Trafaria, AdT’s mission is to ensure that Transpraia doesn’t simply return as a curiosity or tourist novelty, but as a viable and sustainable transport solution — one that reconnects neighborhoods, reduces car dependency, and safeguards the fragile coastal ecosystem.

Through cultural events, educational programs, and community-driven projects, the group is reviving not only steel and wood, but memory and meaning. Local figures like Tiago Monteiro, Ana Rita Esteves, and João Ramires bring their expertise and personal connections to the effort, transforming restoration into resistance.

“We don’t want a replica,” Monteiro says. “We want a real line, with real people on it — connecting neighborhoods, beaches, generations.”

Station: Resistance

It’s easy to dismiss this as nostalgia. But that would be missing the point. Transpraia’s return is not about looking back — it’s about reconnecting paths that were deliberately severed. It’s about proposing another rhythm, another mode of being together in place and time.

Consider this: in recent years, Portugal has seen a record boom in tourism, speculation, and development. Beaches are fenced, dunes are bulldozed, and weekend traffic to the Caparica coastline is often backed up for hours. The train — had it been maintained — would have offered not only relief, but a model. Instead, the country followed the familiar 20th-century logic of asphalt and enclosure.

But Amigos do Transpraia refuse that logic.They’re not fighting to preserve a relic — they’re fighting for climate-conscious mobility, for access without congestion, for public joy without private engines.

Station: Movement

With no official public backing (yet), the group has begun the work from below: raising funds, restoring materials, mapping potential routes, and documenting the line’s cultural and ecological relevance.

More than a memory project, this is an intervention in the present: a way to reclaim space from car dependency and imagine alternatives that are lighter, slower, and more just. In a time of climate crisis, rising emissions, and burned-out infrastructures, reviving a beach train is no small gesture — it is an act of resilience.

Through community engagement, partnerships with universities, and environmental stewardship, AdT is demonstrating that sustainable transport doesn’t always require megaprojects. Sometimes, it just means returning to what already worked — and letting it breathe again.

For them, Transpraia is not just about moving bodies. It’s about what public infrastructure can feel like when it’s built with care, and not for profit. It’s about how mobility shapes memory — and how memory might, in turn, shape policy.

Municipalities like Almada have expressed interest in supporting the revival, but the initiative’s soul lies with the people: those who remember the sound of the wheels, the way the sea came into view, the feeling of being part of something shared.

Station: Hope

This act of bringing back a train is not a grand futuristic overhaul. It is modest. It is meaningful. It is rooted in the idea that the spaces between cities and nature — between the urban and the oceanic — deserve more than highways and rental cars.

To board the Transpraia again would be to choose common ground over congestion, wind over air conditioning, rails over ruts.

In Portuguese, the word esperar means both to wait and to hope.

And perhaps that is what this train now carries most of all: a slow-moving future that knows exactly where it came from — and dares to return.

The next stop is not yet on the map.
But the line, it turns out, was never fully gone.
It just needed someone to believe in its return.

Join the Journey If you’d like to support the initiative or learn more, visit www.transpraia.org. Join Amigos do Transpraia and help bring this story back to life. Every gesture counts — from donations to stories to shared memories.
The train is waiting.