It was curious in a way. One of the dominant figures of national politics at that time was the only Mallorcan to have thus far been prime minister of Spain, Antoni Maura, who had as one of his driving principles an end to the cacique, a system of abuse within a further system of pretend democracy; one characterised by favours and privileges. Yet, Jerónimo and Maura were close. Jerónimo was a supporter of Maura's. And when it came to the train and the tram, Maura was to prove to be useful. Or so at least goes one of the versions of the train-tram story, the one about the length of the railway line being too short to qualify for a government grant. Because it was too short, the plan was hatched to extend it, not by train but by tram to the port. And Jerónimo! A grant was forthcoming, thanks to Maura.
This is all of course lost in the mists of early twentieth-century time. It doesn't really matter now what the precise circumstances were that led to the creation of the tram. What does is that Sóller has its tram. And its train. There is nowhere else on Mallorca that is defined in the way that Sóller is. It is a definition of transport, and the plaque pays homage to this.
It is hypothetical, but what if the railway line had been the grant-requiring thirty kilometres minimum in length? Would the expedience of the initially unplanned-for tram have been replaced by the foresight of a tram? Rather than having been some sort of accident of transport planning, might it have been conceived as an essential means of linking town and port? One with tourism in mind?
Though Sóller and its port are distinct, they are indistinct precisely because of the tram. It is fundamental to both. Sóller has many defining characteristics, but none is as significant as the tram. It is its own attraction, but it is important in a way that makes Sóller unique. Unlike other municipalities in Mallorca where the town and the resort are separated by some distance, Sóller and the port are intimately linked. They are, therefore, a single entity: a double whammy of touristic potential produced by a mode of transport that reeks of nostalgia and times past but is nevertheless very much of the present.
It is perfectly conceivable that the tram would have been created anyway. But not principally because of tourism. Sóller's port had long been a vital means for the town's exports. Just as the train was not originally only designed to move people but also produce, so the tram would shift produce. That the tram was to become one of the iconic and main symbols for Sóller and Mallorcan tourism was more happenchance than design.
Jerónimo, though certainly not immune to the business potential of the "new" industry of tourism, was more concerned with expanding conventional business interests and introducing other infrastructure, such as electricity. There was to be someone else, however, who had tourism firmly in mind, and had his wish been fulfilled, Sóller might now not have quite the same claim it does for transport uniqueness and the curiosity factor of this transport in the Tramuntana mountains. That someone else was Antoni Parietti. He was the engineer responsible for the roads to Sa Calobra and from Puerto Pollensa to Formentor: both built with tourism in mind. Parietti had another project. The intention had been for a funicular railway to go to the top of the Puig Major, where there was to have been an observatory, a restaurant and ... some type of snow sports resort.
Parietti's vision was never fulfilled. Wars got in the way and the funicular plan was eventually scrapped in favour of a road to serve what was to become a military installation. Had the project been fulfilled, well, you can probably draw your own conclusions as to what it might have meant for winter tourism. It wasn't and so Sóller, with its train and the tram that runs through it, was left for all time to reap the benefits of uniqueness.
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