Homework / test English to Spanish Art/Literary Poetry & Literature travel guide

At its height, the whole operation was spectacularly successful. Between 1896 and 1931 the railway carried a total of 3,795,569 tonnes of ore. However, by the second decade of the 20th century, some of the same factors: a collapse of market prices and rising salaries, that were affecting the gold mines at Rodalquilar were also upsetting the iron industry. Competition from iron mines in North Africa, where labour was cheaper, exacerbated the crisis. In 1919 and 1920 the storage silos at Agua Amarga were overflowing with a mineral for which there was no market. Operation of the railway was suspended and although it opened again under the auspices of its workforce during the Civil War, there was minimal activity. Rail transport began on a bigger scale again briefly in 1939 but time was running out and in 1942 the final consignment was loaded onto the single-funnelled steamboat Bartolo. Not long afterwards the rails and bridges were dismantled and, together with the rolling stock, taken off to Almería for sale to other railways or for scrap. The locomotive Carboneras, for example, was bought by the Hulleras de Riosa Society for use in the coal mines of Asturias in northern Spain.