The Public Choice in the Railway Sector: Case Studies in the Douro Region
THE PUBLIC CHOICE IN THE RAILWAY SECTOR: CASE STUDIES IN THE DOURO REGION Pedro Miguel Pinto Lampreia Dissertation submitted as partial requirement for the conferral of Master in Economics Supervisor: Prof. Maria de Fátima Ferreiro, Prof. Auxiliar, ISCTE Business School, Departamento de Economia Política October 2015 “Railway stations (…) do not constitute, so to speak, a part of the surrounding town but contain the essence of its personality just as upon their sign-boards they bear its painted name” Marcel Proust The Public Choice in the Railway Sector: Case Studies in the Douro Region Abstract In this study, which is going to start by approaching the most important concepts of the public choice theory, such as the two main views of the State, we are going to focus our attention on five railway lines placed in the North Interior of Portugal. Our journey is going to be initiated in the Douro Line. Then, we are going to travel along the four narrowed-gauge railway stretches which departed from some stations of the collector itinerary. Besides the Tua Line, there were three other stretches with architectural and tourism particular interest in this region of Portugal. All these itineraries were created not only to serve the most isolated populations but also to drain some regional products, such as the Reboredo Mountain iron mines, in Torre de Moncorvo. The appearance of the Plano de Modernização e Reconversão dos Caminhos-de-Ferro led to the closure of at least one linkage of these five railway lines, between 1988 and 1991. Two decades after, the new Plano Estratégico dos Transportes , launched in 2011, confirmed new suppressions in three of the four stretches which were still running.
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