CANFRANC INTERNATIONAL RAILWAY STATION, SPAIN

 

Canfranc International Railway Station, Spain

The station, which was opened during July 1928, was constructed on a grand scale to serve as a major hub for cross-border railway traffic. The station's platforms had a length of 200 m (220 yd). Ex­ten­sive infra­struc­ture was present to ser­vice and trans­fer tran­sit­ing passengers, baggage and freight between Spanish and French trains, because the French rail standard gauge of 1,435 mm (4 ft 8-1/2 in) was incompatible with the Spanish gauge of 1,668 mm (5 ft 5-21/32 in) at the time, and hence prevented through traffic.

Canfranc In­ter­national rail­way station was often re­fer­red to around the time of its open­ing as the "Titanic of the Mountains", in part due to its large size, being the sec­ond largest station building in Europe at the time of its completion. Architecturally, it was deliberately designed with prominent symbolism: the exterior features an eclectic Beaux-Arts style that was reportedly inspired by French palatial architecture, while the interior was adorned with elements drawn from classical Roman architecture. Large quantities of glass, cement and iron are present throughout the structure, which is adorned with 365 individual windows.

During the Sec­ond World War, the sta­tion and the sur­round­ing area acquired a reputation as the "Casa­blan­ca in the Pyre­nees" due to its serv­ing as a key cross­ing point for goods, as well as being a center of espi­onage for Nazi and Span­ish authorities. Officially neutral Spain had formed an operational agreement with the Wehrmacht, which saw freight trains carrying mined tungsten northwards while French grain, as well as trans-shipped Swiss gold, was borne southwards. Passenger services also continued during the conflict, which provided an escape route into Spain for both Jews and Allied soldiers alike. Aware of these movements, Nazi agents frequently sought to intervene against passengers of interest.

The station's principal purpose of operation came to an abrupt halt on 20 March 1970, when a train derailment on the Pau-Canfranc railway line demolished the L'Estanguet bridge on the French side of the Pyrénées Mountains. Under financial pressure from its national railway company SNCF, the French government decided not to rebuild the bridge, which effectively forced the closure of the cross-border line. Despite this, the station remained open, served by just two daily Spanish trains and a handful of rail replacement buses from the French side. As a consequence of the through route's abrupt termination, the population of the village declined sharply over the following years.

After decades of neglect, the Canfranc International railway station, with its grand archi­tecture reminiscent of a French château, is being converted into a 5-star, 104-room hotel by the Barceló hotel chain, in partnership with the regional government of Aragón. The station will also house a 200-seat conference center, a railway museum, shops, and a pilgrim refuge, as Canfranc is located on one of the routes to Santiago de Compostela.
A new station will be built behind the old and connected through the hotel's vestibule.

TRAINS, SOLAR PANELS AND LITTLE GIRLS

 

It is too bad we no longer have a government that will invest in infrastructure projects like this.The country will decay while drumpf / trump prances about the White House and golf courses singing "Thank heaven for little girls". Who wrote this song, jeffrey epstein?

AMTRACK SNOW TRAIN

 

The Most Extreme Railway in the World 22NOV18

I love trains, always have. I have taken train tips in the U.S. and Germany and I think one of the dumbest things this country ever did was abandon passenger trains for the Interstate Highway System. Even the freight rail system we have is just a little better than third world systems. Here is a beautifully produced video on what really may be the most extreme railway in the world, from the Atlantic.....

The Most Extreme Railway in the World

The Most Extreme Railway in the World

Nov 22, 2018 | 686 videos

Video by Miguel de Olaso

At 430 miles long, the formidable Mauritania Railway, nicknamed the “backbone of the Sahara,” boasts some of the longest and heaviest trains in the world. Its journey begins in Zouerat, Mauritania, where 22,000 tons of iron ore are mined daily and transported across the searing desert to the port city of Nouadhibou, on Africa’s Atlantic coast. Sometimes the train also carries passengers—merchants who travel illegally atop the train to transport food and supplies to remote Saharan communities. The ride is treacherous. Many die en route.

Malick, a 27-year-old merchant, takes his chances. He relies on the train for his livelihood, as do the many people who live along the train’s route. Miguel de Olaso and his four-person camera crew, disguised as fellow merchants, made the 30-hour trip with Malick in the train’s open-top wagons. The resulting short documentary is a deeply immersive, cinematic glimpse into a way of life that exists nowhere else in the world.

“If the train goes through a sandstorm, you feel like you want to die,” de Olaso told The Atlantic. “All you can do is just close your eyes and let it pass.”

The train ride was so unbearable that de Olaso vowed never to return. But he was moved to come back time after time to film the resilience he saw in the Mauritanian merchants, whose grueling journey plays out against the backdrop of one of the Earth’s greatest and most unforgiving vistas.

Sound The Alphorns: World's Longest, Deepest Tunnel Is Officially Open 1JUN16

THIS really is amazing, and the Swiss are to be congratulated not only for building this tunnel but also that the Swiss people, as a nation, agreed to pay for this with an additional tax knowing it will benefit the entire nation. From +NPR .....

Sound The Alphorns: World's Longest, Deepest Tunnel Is Officially Open

Train tracks lead toward an access tunnel inside the east section of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Faido, Switzerland, in 2014. The tunnel had its opening ceremony on Wednesday.

Bloomberg via Getty Images

Swiss engineer Carl Eduard Gruner first imagined it in 1947: a massive tunnel, unprecedented in length, buried a mile and a half under Switzerland's symbolic Gotthard mountain range.

Nearly seven decades later, after redesigns, political disagreements and the long, slow work of drilling beneath the Gotthard massif, as it's called, Gruner's dream is complete.

The Gotthard Base Tunnel — a record-setting 35.4 miles long, and farther below ground than any other tunnel — was inaugurated Wednesday. The occasion was marked with a celebration that promoted "Swiss values such as innovation, precision and reliability," as the tunnel's website puts it.

The $12 billion project was completed on time, The Associated Press notes.

The 35.4-mile Gotthard Base Tunnel is the world's longest railway tunnel. Dancers performed at Wednesday's opening ceremony.

Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

The most eye-catching part of Wednesday's ceremony was an extended modern dance sequence — featuring stony-faced dancers dressed in orange construction gear and boots, dancing on and around a flatcar.

Another sequence featured dancers in white briefs and one figure with wings and an oversize head, while yet another sequence had people covered in suits resembling a cross between a pompom and a hay bale.

The spectacle represents the mythical significance of the Gotthard massif to the Swiss (more on that below), and the achievement of the new tunnel, according to swissinfo.ch

The inauguration of the tunnel also featured alphorns, an interfaith blessing of the tunnel and a tunnel theme song. Leaders from across the EU — including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, according to the AP — were in attendance.

This weekend, tens of thousands of people are expected to participate in a public festival with events on either side of the tunnel — and, of course, the option to ride the train beneath the mountain range.

Artists perform in Erstfeld, Switzerland, on Wednesday at the opening of the Gotthard rail tunnel. The show was directed by German director Volker Hesse.

Peter Klaunzer/AFP/Getty Images

When it opens for commercial service in December, the tunnel will remove thousands of polluting trucks from roads through pristine Alpine landscapes, as NPR's Eleanor Beardsley has previously reported. The high-speed rail running through the tunnel will make the train trip between Zurich and Milan about 45 minutes shorter, cutting it to 2 1/2 hours.

From first blast to opening celebration, the tunnel took 17 years to complete; nine people died in the process. "Engineers had to overcome crumbling rock and underground rivers they found along the way," Eleanor says. "The entire Swiss nation was captivated by the project, following it every step of the way."

The world was watching, too.

Miners celebrate beneath the Swiss Alps in 2010, after a giant drilling machine bored through to create the world's longest tunnel. After several more years of work, the train line through that tunnel is now open.

Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Six years ago, when the massive boring machines met each other in the middle of the mountain range, JJ Sutherland waxed philosophical here on the Two-Way:

"There is a certain majesty in projects of grand engineering. A majesty and an ambition to reshape the very make up of the world. You can't stand before the Hoover Dam, or transit the Panama Canal, or drive over the Golden Gate Bridge without being moved. They are sublime in their impact, symphonies of concrete and steel that just make you proud to be human."

THE TWO-WAY

The Greatness Of Ambition Made Real In The Alps

He noted the importance of the Gotthard crossing, writing that the conquest of that mountain range was significant in the history of Europe:

"The pass and then the original tunnel, higher up and shorter, were so important a trade route, a route of people and goods and information, that Swiss troops were concentrated there in World War II. And Swiss citizens decided the Gotthard Base Tunnel was important enough they would tax themselves to pay for it, about $1,300 each. Every man, woman and child. This is not just a project of engineers, it is a project of a people."