The city of Alcoi has a long industrial tradition. Its inland location, on very rugged land, was a strong drawback to providing a way to market its products. From 1909 it had a railway connection as part of the national network to Valencia through Xátiva, belonging to the Compañía del Norte, which had been preceded, in 1893, by the narrow-gauge railway, backed by British capital, which linked with the port of Gandía. 

But Alcoy's aspirations pointed to a broad-gauge railway, of greater capacity, which would connect it with the port of Alicante, more important than the modest Grao de Gandía. In addition, this broad gauge branch that ended in Alcoi would be solved, continuing it to the South and designing a shorter North-South regional route than the one that existed with a large detour through La Encina.

Thus, under the Guadalhorce Railway Plan, in the middle of General Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, fast-paced constructed began that managed to create 66 km of railway infrastructure featuring a winding route crossing mountain divides, passing through Ibi and Castalla, and linking in Agost with the line from Madrid to Alicante, very close to the capital and its port.

All the engineering resources of those times were used, with spectacular viaducts, very long tunnels and huge levelling works. Only the stations remained to be built when the Civil War started. The general crisis of the war and the post-war period prevented the tracks from being laid and the railway from being opened to service, being finally forgotten among these Alicante mountains.