The rail connection was inaugurated late in the morning of 29 July 1999, a Thursday, in the presence of the then Prime Minister, António Guterres, the Minister of Equipment, João Cravinho, the Secretary of State for Transport, Guilhermino Rodrigues, and the mayors of Lisbon, João Soares, Seixal, Alfredo Monteiro, and Almada, Maria Emília Sousa.

Two and a half decades later, the management of Fertagus, the company that operates the rail service between the stations of Roma-Areeiro (Lisbon) and Setúbal (54 kilometres), has made a “very positive” assessment, highlighting the impacts on mobility and the environment.

“We believe that Fertagus has become essential for mobility in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area and has made a fundamental contribution to its improvement. With a high-quality, fast and punctual service, we have managed to guarantee the rail connection between the South Bank and Lisbon”, Clara Esquível, director of Fertagus, told the Lusa news agency.

In 25 years of operation, the 25 de Abril Bridge rail service has transported 498 million passengers, the equivalent of the population of the entire European Union, and has covered around 51 million kilometres, the equivalent of 1,273 times around the planet.

“We estimate that we have removed around 80 million cars from the 25 de Abril Bridge, which is also very significant and an important contribution”, she pointed out, considering that these figures mean that the emission of more than 900 thousand tons of CO2 has been avoided in the last 25 years.

In 2023, Fertagus transported around 27 million passengers and in the first quarter of this year alone, 14.8 million have already been counted.

“We have always worked with the same rolling stock and sought to ensure the service is real, namely punctuality and regularity in the provision of the service”, pointed out Clara Esquível.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the rail crossing on the 25 de Abril Bridge, the concessionaire company will carry out a number of initiatives, namely the distribution of gifts alluding to the event at the stations and the naming of a train named after the poet Sebastião da Gama, a native of the Setúbal district.

There will also be a musical performance at Coina station with the guitar quartet Orquestra Nova de Guitarras.

The concession period for the Tagus railway crossing to Fertagus ends on 30 September 2024.

The railway crossing over the Tagus in Lisbon was an old idea: when the bridge was built in 1966, during Oliveira Salazar's time, a 600-metre tunnel was also built under Praça da Portagem, on the "other side", (extended by a further 300 metres in 1999) which waited 33 years for trains.

The total value of the work at the time was around 150 million contos (around 750 million euros), of which 50 million (250 million euros) went to the structural reinforcement works of the bridge, creation of the sixth track on the road deck, painting and lighting, 77 million (385 million euros) on the infrastructure and 22 million (110 million euros) on the acquisition of rolling stock.