About this journey

Lisboa – Oriente station, elevated 19 metres above the roadway on a structure designed by Santiago Calatrava in 1995 and inaugurated on 19 May 1998 for Expo '98, stands as Portugal's largest intermodal station at its opening — its glass-and-metal lattice canopy still one of the most distinctive departure points on the Iberian network. The journey south begins on the Cintura Line, the ring line around Lisbon's centre, threading through Entrecampos and Sete Rios before swinging down through Campolide, where the Arco Grande aqueduct of 1744 passes overhead as part of the Águas Livres system that once supplied the city with water.

The route then transitions onto the Linha do Sul, crossing the Tagus on the April 25th Bridge — built in 1966, with its rail deck added in 1999 after structural reinforcement — before surfacing south of the river at Pragal. Prior to 1999, trains bound for southern Portugal reached the Algarve via the old Barreiro terminus on the Tagus south bank, connected to Lisbon by river ferry. Beyond Pinhal Novo, a major junction between older and newer alignments, the line accelerates across the Alentejo plain with a maximum permitted speed of 200 km/h for Intercidades services. South of Pinheiro the route joins the Variante de Álcacer, a 29 km high-speed bypass completed in 2010, crossing the Sado River on a 2,735-metre viaduct before rejoining the classic alignment at Grândola.

Faro station, opened on 1 July 1889, marks the southern end of the electrified network; the line continuing east toward Vila Real de Santo António runs without overhead catenary. Through Intercidades services connecting Lisbon directly to Faro only became possible in 2003, making this 301.6 km corridor a relatively recent unbroken link between the capital and the Algarve coast.