Station To Station

So, it would seem that some técnicos have been handed goodly sums of public wonga to come up with the bleeding obvious - namely where the railway extension from Sa Pobla should not be sited. Técnicos, it should be noted, can be anything from an "expert" (either one who is legitimately an expert or one who thinks he is) to the bloke who unblocks the drains or short-circuits your electricity system. Actually, the chap with the rods would have been as expert in this instance as those who would claim expertise. In fact, I would have been as expert, and I'm not a técnico in any shape or form.

For those of you who may have missed the earlier instalments of this civil-engineering saga, the railway is meant - at some point - to run for the final ten kilometres or so from Sa Pobla to Alcúdia which would bring the local railway not so much into the twenty-first century as into the nineteenth. The route for this has been a thing of controversy and environmental wrangling, the obvious one always having always been one that goes alongside the main road (in other words, the road from the motorway). The greater issue has been where it will end up. And it is this that the técnicos have pronounced upon: it will not be by the Es Foguero ruin next to Albufera and the industrial estate. This should be the cue for yet more wailing, not least from Alcúdia's mayor who is in favour of the Es Foguero option and has thrown his toy choo-choo out of the pram on more than one occasion, complaining that the government's mobility department has not consulted adequately. Muro town hall has also voiced its preference for Es Foguero, which may have something to do with the fact that a terminal would be right next to the Muro border.

But no, the técnicos are saying no to Es Foguero. The big question remains, however, where exactly will the terminal be, and for the first time that I can recall, other than on this blog, they are now talking about it going next to the Horse Roundabout. When this railway was first mooted, following President Antich's glorious socialist victory in 2007 that heralded his "age of the train", I said that putting it by the roundabout would seem the obvious place. Talk to many people here and they will say the same thing. One should be used to the fact that the obvious is often the last thing on a Mallorcan planner's list. Until now, and it is still a possibility, the preference has been for causing a considerable amount of upheaval to say nothing of a fair degree of expropriation and dissent by running the track across finca land and knocking other bits down so that Alcúdia railway station could be somewhere behind the auditorium. The Horse Roundabout option would be far more straightforward; it would also be more sensible as a terminal for the planned tram to Can Picafort. Moreover, it would have a demographic advantage in that there are more people living within a kilometre radius than there would be if the terminal were to go in the old town. That there maybe some wetland by the roundabout should not be beyond the know-how of some técnicos to sort out. They could always get the blokes with their plumbing rods to see to it.


Some shock news from the town hall in Alcúdia regarding the redevelopment of the Can Ramis building next to the market square. It is a shock because I am told it's likely to be finished by July or August - this year! Remarkable. And apparently, they're not going to close the existing tourist office in the old town but have two - the current one and the one that has always been planned for Can Ramis. So, four tourist offices in all in Alcúdia. Well done, them. And some of them might even be open. Reeling from the impact of this news, I had to go and steady myself by having a drink in a nearby café, and who should I stumble across but the ebullient Miguel, the owner of the Agata stone shops, who is normally, at this time of the year, trekking along the Amazon basin extracting rare gems and generally disrupting the fragile eco-system of Brazil. But this year isn't, or hasn't for as long as normal. Anyway, this is all by way of leading up to the fact that he is to open a third Agata, in addition to the original one in Alcúdia old town and the one in Puerto Pollensa that he started a couple of years ago. This third one is to be in Playa de Muro between the Oasis and Topo Gigio restaurants. Given that even the local tourist office has said that the shops there could do with some improvement, this is pretty decent news for Playa de Muro.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KngiJUNdsu0). Today's title - well, no clues for this; pretty easy.

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