Going underground

The metro. For some a humdrum mode of travelling from A to B, for others a labyrinthine underground world full of history and buried secrets. How much do you know about Spain’s second oldest underground railway?

BARCELONA AT THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY

The beginning of the 20th century was a period of immense change for Barcelona. The industrial revolution had caused rapid population growth in Spain’s cities, leading to massive overcrowding in Barcelona, a city still confined within its medieval walls. The years 1854-56 saw a brief period of progressive government during which time the demolition of the city’s walls was finally authorised and Barcelona was able to breathe once more. The expansion of the city, with the creation of the Eixample under the Plan Cerdà, got underway in 1860 and, by the beginning of the 20th century, the newly enlarged city, which had also incorporated villages such as Gràcia and Sants, had a population of over 500,000. However, if Barcelona was going to join the major European capitals as a truly world-class city, it needed the infrastructure to match. The construction of the metro was a defining factor in Barcelona’s break into modernity.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE METRO

The Barcelona metro began as two separate, privately-owned projects. The first to open belonged to the company Gran Metropolitano de Barcelona, which, on December 30th, 1924, inaugurated the first line of the Gran Metro. It ran between Lesseps and Plaça Catalunya and is part of the current Line 3. The second line was run by the company Ferrocarril Metropolitano de Barcelona and was known as El Transversal. El Transversal was initially intended to be a connecting line between railway stations in the north and the south of the city.

This scheme was never put into action, although to this day the tracks are able to connect with those of Adif (the national rail administrator). When El Transversal first opened on June 10th, 1926, it went from Bordeta—a now-disused station near the station Santa Eulàlia—to Plaça Catalunya, corresponding with the modern-day Line 1. And, in 1959, the same company opened a second line, which went from La Sagrera to Vilapicina.

In 1926, the Gran Metro split at Passeig de Gràcia, creating a Y-shaped line with branches down both La Rambla and Via Laietana. The tunnels of the Laietana branch are the oldest in the network because they were preemptively constructed with the view to a future metro system during the construction of the thoroughfare in 1908. Between 1936 and 1949, breaks were put on the construction of the metro due to the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, although the metro was used as an air raid shelter during the Civil War.

In 1961, Ferrocarril Metropolitano de Barcelona absorbed the Gran Metro company, creating just one network, and the lines were renamed with Roman numerals. El Transversal became Line I and Gran Metro became Lines II and III. The Fifties, Sixties and Seventies saw huge growth of the metro network as new lines were inaugurated and existing ones extended.

In 1973, the branch of Line III that went down Via Laietana was used to create the new line IV, which travelled up towards Joanich (Joanic). In 1982, the line names were changed to Arabic and, with the arrival of democracy, the stations could finally be given their Catalan names. Atarazanas, for example, became Drassanes, which means ‘shipyard’.

Today, Barcelona’s metro is the second biggest in Spain and has 12 lines, 180 stations and covers 146 kilometres. As it did in the newly extended Barcelona of the 1920s, the metro is constantly reaching further to cater to the needs of its 465 million yearly passengers.

PHANTOM STATIONS

Phantom stations are stations that were once in use but are now closed, or that were built but never inaugurated. One such station is Correos, in use between 1934 and 1972. Passengers who press their faces against the train window on Line 4 between Jaume I and Barceloneta will be able to make out the shadow-clad abandoned station, left exactly as it was on the day it was closed up forever. On the walls are advertisements as well as election posters for Eduardo Tarragona, part of a municipal election campaign held in 1972, a simulation of democracy in the last years of the dictatorship.

Phantom stations that were built but never inaugurated include Banc, also on Via Laietana, between Jaume I and Urquinaona. There’s not much to see this time, just some sinister looking stairs that lead to a dead end. The story goes that the station was intended to have access to the Banco de España located above it, so money could be secretly transported and deposited via the metro station. The station was built at the same time as the tunnels on Via Laietana and was constructed to the wrong dimensions, so it had to be destroyed.

Another station that was built but never opened is Gaudí, situated on Line 5 between Sagrada Família and Sant Pau/Dos de Maig. Spooky stories tell of humanoid figures lurking in the gloom of this station, their blank faces staring ahead as they wait for a train that will never come.

5 FACTS ABOUT THE METRO

1. Urquinaona is the only station in the network that still has one of its original entrances, on Carrer del Bruc.

2. The tunnel arch in Fontana still has the original tiles placed there in 1925—they bear the logo and corporate colours of the company Gran Metropolitano de Barcelona.

3. This logo can also be found on the iron railings at the entrances to the Liceu station.

4. The extension of the network towards the sea was difficult due to Barcelona’s aquatic subsoil. This is overcome by pumps channeling groundwater into sewage tanks, which can be heard working if you listen carefully in the Arc de Triomf station. If these pumps stopped working, the tracks would be flooded up to the level of the platform within 10 hours.

5. The deepest station is El Coll/La Teixonera, which has a depth of 74 metres.