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In July 1928 a remarkable train station opened just south of the Spanish French border in the Pyrenees at the end of the Somport railway tunnel which had been completed 13 years earlier. The small, previously isolated, village of Canfranc was at once transformed into an international hub of activity. It was also dwarfed by the monumental scale of the building and its sidings where standard gauge French trains pulled in and wider gauge Spanish trains departed toward Madrid and beyond.
During the Spanish Civil War Franco ordered the Spanish side of the Somport tunnel to be sealed but because of the Franco-Spanish international convention under which it was built, the Spanish station itself remained open It was also extensively used by international traffic during the second world war when it was known as the Casablanca in the Pyrenees. Freight trains carried tungsten ore north and French grain along with Swiss gold headed south. Passenger services continued during the war providing an escape route into Spain for Jews and Allied soldiers.
The station remained a major hub for cross-border railway traffic until 1970 when a train derailed in France damaging a key bridge severing the line. Subsequently it remained in use locally with the occasional Spanish train stopping, but its cross border days were over… or so it was thought.
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In February 2020, funding for both the relaunch of international services and the station's rehabilitation was made available by the European Union and it’s currently undergoing major restoration. The opening of the railway involves the owners of the station; the government of Aragon, to work with the government of Aquitaine. The station building is being transformed into a hotel and conference centre. From what we could see workmanship is very good, and it would truly be an incredible place to host a conference!
Canfranc is set high up in the pyrenees, on the border with France with a river running through it. If you ever get the chance, do stop off, have a look, before heading towards the tunnel into France.
We did exactly that although the road to reach Canfranc wasn’t quite as expected. We knew the tunnel was still a major crossing for heavy goods vehicles, so we were expecting the motorway to go all the way there, but it didn’t! There we were driving along admiring the scenery when suddenly we noticed huge concrete barriers across the road, totally blocking the motorway. With no warning, the motorway ended and we were diverted off down a small steep road wiggling its way through villages, around lakes and over rivers. For a good few miles we pondered what was happening, but the lorries occasionally came the other direction so we presumed we hadn’t gone wrong. Just as suddenly as it started the road shot up a slipway back onto the motorway and we realised the bit to join the two ends hadn’t been built! Such a Spanish way to deal with a problem! No road, no problem, send the juggernauts through the villages, it’ll be fine!
However leaving Canfranc was simpler, follow the signs to the Somport tunnel and off you go. We’ve been through a fair few tunnels on this trip, but this was the big one. At 5.3 miles long (opened on 7 February 2003) this one takes a while to get through! We’d heard it can get really busy, but as you can see, we were alone for most of the journey. It curves, undulates and goes on and on, it’s an eerie feeling being along driving under a mountain for so long.
As you near the end of the tunnel you see a speck of light getting bigger and bigger and you pop out into the sunlight and a very different place. On the French side the road narrows, winds, and cuts through gorges and the temperature dropped, significantly.
We were able to spot some of the train lines and tunnels being restored to enable the cross border trains. We had intended to stop soon after the crossing to visit a bear sanctuary, but having seen the gradient of the road, we didn’t! Maybe in a car it would be fine, but we weren’t keen to put Agy, or us, through that!
