{"id":1954,"date":"2025-11-24T11:16:43","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T11:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/?p=1954"},"modified":"2025-11-27T13:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T13:50:10","slug":"canfranc-estacion-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/index.php\/2025\/11\/24\/canfranc-estacion-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"Canfranc estaci\u00f3n, Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Canfranc
Canfranc Estacion Hotel. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Located in northern Spain is Canfranc station, nowadays a 5 star hotel but opened in 1928 as an international border station between Spain and France, on a line running through the Somport railway tunnel. At the time of opening, it was the 2nd largest station in Europe (Leipzig Hauptbahnhof in Germany being the biggest).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No through trains ran beyond Canfranc as France uses the international standard gauge of 4 foot 8.5 inches whereas Spain has its own gauge of 5 foot 6 inches. The station acted as a transhipment point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The station continued in this role until 1970 when a train derailment in France damaged a bridge on the route, which saw the cross border line closed. Spanish services continued from Zaragoza, as they do today, albeit now to a new station adjacent to the original.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Renovation of the spectacular station building started in 2020 with the hotel opening in January 2023. In addition to the station building, there is a restaurant in 2 carriages located on the site of the historic tracks of the original station (the modern station is off to one side on the site of former sidings).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\""1928"
“1928” Restaurant in station foreground. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2025<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I am writing this post from the hotel, having arrived off the train from Zaragoza at 19:50 on Sunday, after travelling by train from Barcelona. This involved a change of train at Zaragoza and again at Huesca. The reception staff seemed surprised at both my method of getting here and that I had travelled all the way from Ireland!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modern day station is nothing spectacular from an architectural viewpoint, with three platforms and a siding for a grain silo. Elsewhere on the site of the former station, there are static displays of former track and two carriages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Static
Static display at Canfranc Station. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2025<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Static
Static display at Canfranc Station. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2025<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Located in northern Spain is Canfranc station, nowadays a 5 star hotel but opened in 1928 as an international border station between Spain and France, on a line running through the Somport railway tunnel. At the time of opening, it was the 2nd largest station in Europe (Leipzig Hauptbahnhof in Germany being the biggest). No […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1954"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1979,"href":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions\/1979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/industrialheritageireland.info\/Blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}