Canfranc International Railway Station

Canfranc International Railway Station (Spanish: Estación Internacional de Canfranc) is a former international railway station in the village of Canfranc in the Spanish Pyrenees, at one end of the Somport railway tunnel which carried the Pau–Canfranc railway under the Pyrenees. Opened in 1928, the main building is 240 metres (790 ft) long and has 300 windows and 156 doors.

History

Construction of the Somport railway tunnel was inaugurated on the French side on 12 July 1912, and after delays in its construction due to World War I, completed in 1915.

Spanish project engineer Ramírez de Dampierre began construction of the station in 1923, and it was formally opened on 18 July 1928, in the presence of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and the president of the French Republic Gaston Doumergue. The large size of the station and infrastructure was necessitated in part by the need to transfer all transiting passengers, baggage and freight between Spanish and French trains, because the French rail standard gauge of 1,435 millimetres (4 ft 8.5 in) was incompatible with the Spanish gauge of 1,672 millimetres (5 ft 5.8 in) at the time and hence prevented through-traffic.^[1] This transformed a simple customs-control exercise into a lengthy logistics exercise. The site includes a large locomotive depot, two sheds for the transshipment of freight between French and Spanish trains, various other outbuildings and a resultant extensive layout of tracks.

Due to the Franco-Spanish international convention under which it was built, the Somport railway tunnel and quasi-French control of the French-side of Canfranc international railway station continued during World War II. The Spanish authorities came to an operational agreement with the Nazi German Wehrmacht authorities, whereby passenger train services continued, with freight-trains carrying mined tungsten north, and French grain plus trans-shipped Swiss gold south.

The station's raison d'être came to an abrupt halt in 1970 when a train derailment demolished a bridge on the French side of the mountains. Under financial pressure from French national railway company SNCF, the French government decided not to rebuild the bridge, and hence the cross-border line was closed.

Present

The site is mostly overgrown, but most of the buildings are largely intact and can be entered. The main building has been re-roofed, but is otherwise in a state of disrepair, fenced off and closed to the public except during guided tours in July and August offered through the local tourist office.

The railway station, using rather more modest facilities, is still open for the two daily passenger trains to and from Zaragoza-Delicias railway station, plus occasional freight trains to the grain silo.

See also

• Canfranc Underground Laboratory

References

Bibliography

• Dieter Hamblock (2010). "Tristesse in den Pyrenäen" [Sadness in the Pyrenees]. Eisenbahngeschichte (in German). 40: 60–67. 
• Alexander Kierdorf (2010). "„Es gibt keine Pyrenäen mehr“ – Der Palastbahnhof im spanischen Canfranc" ["There are no more Pyrenees" — The Palace Station in Spanish Canfranc]. industrie-kultur (in German). 50 (1): 14f. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Canfranc International Railway Station.

• "Canfranc railway station: in-depth history and pictures". Forbidden Places. 
• "Canfranc railway station and Pau line photos and history". Pierre-Henry Muller. 
• David Martos (12 October 2013). "Albert Le Lay, el espía que combatió a Hitler desde Canfranc" [Albert Le Lay, the spy who fought Hitler from Canfranc]. ABC (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 December 2013. 
• Juego de espías (Canfranc-Zaragoza-San Sebastián) (2013) on IMDb
• El rey de Canfranc (2013) on IMDb

Coordinates: 42°45′05″N 0°30′51″W / 42.7513°N 0.5142°W / 42.7513; -0.5142