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Canfranc - Europe's second biggest railway station?

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Hornet

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Unfortunately these just link to a homepage where you have to fill blanks in.

Worked fine when I posted it. Here are the services for October 2017 Weekdays.

Canfranc D 08:45
Zaragoza Delicias A 12:40

Canfranc D 17:53
Zaragoza Delicias A 21:48

Zaragoza Delicias D 06:40
Canfranc A 10:26

Zaragoza Delicias D 15:41
Canfranc A 19:37
 
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Joe Paxton

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Worked fine when I posted it. ...

The pages will be session / cookie based, so the URLs will work for you but not for others. If you were to try the URLs in a different browser they won't work.
 

mpthomson

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Like the Scottish referendum, no-one really knows the answer to this. I suspect like Brexit, it would be a lengthy, uncertain negotiation with strong feelings on both sides.

Given their attitudes towards the referendum, I think the Spanish Government re-routing services away from Catalan soil if independence ever happened couldn't be ruled out, even just out of spite. Obviously they will want to have their own direct links to France as well and not be reliant on transport links controlled by another country.

Well, we do. The current EU position is if you leave an EU state, in terms of declaring independence, then you've also left the EU and would have to apply to rejoin, and that's stated in the current treaties. This was made abundantly clear to the Scots government during the 2014 referendum campaign and the Unionist side reminded the SNP of it every time that the latter 'mispoke' regarding this issue. All member states would then have to agree to allow the new country back in, and I can't see the remaining Spain ever allowing Catalonia to rejoin somehow....
 

61653 HTAFC

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Well, we do. The current EU position is if you leave an EU state, in terms of declaring independence, then you've also left the EU and would have to apply to rejoin, and that's stated in the current treaties. This was made abundantly clear to the Scots government during the 2014 referendum campaign and the Unionist side reminded the SNP of it every time that the latter 'mispoke' regarding this issue. All member states would then have to agree to allow the new country back in, and I can't see the remaining Spain ever allowing Catalonia to rejoin somehow....
The key difference between Scotland and Catalonia is that Scotland is geographically remote whereas the principal routes from Spain to the rest of the continent pass through Catalonia. Much of Spain's overseas imports and exports come through the port of Barcelona, and adjusting their infrastructure priorities would take time...

Then again, the Madrid government has already shown itself to be quite willing to cut its nose off to spite its face, so who knows...
 

LNW-GW Joint

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DownSouth

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Do all 3 serve a single station though? I can't see a station in the photo, and AIUI most railway in rural Australia is predominantly freight-only.
Yes, Gladstone does have a passenger station which was served by all three gauges in its heyday.

There were three stations on the Port Pirie to Broken Hill line in South Australia which were triple gauge for a time. All three are now only standard gauge, but they are served by the Indian Pacific and The Ghan and also the location of full-length passing loops on the east-west transcontinental route.

Gladstone: narrow gauge 1876-1927, narrow+broad 1927-1970, triple gauge 1970-1990, standard gauge only from 1990
Peterborough: narrow gauge 1880-1970, triple gauge 1970-1988, standard gauge only from 1988
Port Pirie: narrow gauge 1875-1937, triple gauge 1937-1970, broad+standard 1970-1982, standard only from 1982

There is abandoned dual gauge track at all three of these towns, preserved track and a triple gauge turntable in the Steamtown museum at Peterborough, and the National Railway Museum at Port Adelaide has some dual/triple gauge track including the reconstructed full triple gauge turnout from Gladstone.
 

daikilo

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Nobody could yet say what was the biggest station?

Groningen, the problem is to establish what particular dimension makes/made Canfranc the second biggest. As far as I have been able to establish, it is probably the continuous length of the building when initially built. It is not e.g. surface area, number of platforms, frequencies etc., which are the usual dimension linked to "biggest". Some suggest Paris Gare de Lyon was at the time slightly "bigger" but that would probably be/have been a transverse building at the platform ends.

Whatever answer, the station building was far bigger than ever actually needed for the traffic and the station itself only ever had 2 platfrom faces used for passengers.
 

eddp

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The border station at Latour de Carol is interesting as it's one of the only (if not THE only) stations in the world where 3 gauges meet at a single station: SNCF standard; SNCF metre-gauge (ligne de Cerdagne); and RENFE Iberian broad gauge.

Depending on your definition of a station, Espanya/Pl. Espanya station on the Barcelona metro 122km away has 1672mm gauge (L1), 1435mm standard gauge (L3) and metre gauge (L8/FGC). Interestingly the broad gauge on L1 is the original Spanish broad gauge whereas the broad gauge at La Tour de Carol is the Iberian 1668mm.
 

MarkyT

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For anyone interested, I was at Canfrance last year and took a series of photos here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskKzRBjd

What a fascinating place, and great photos thanks. There's a proposal to reopen the line through the tunnel I understand, with a new station at Canfranc and the old one converted to a hotel. Don't know where the gauge change will take place with the new line though and what form the service may take.
 

MikeR

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What a fascinating place, and great photos thanks. There's a proposal to reopen the line through the tunnel I understand, with a new station at Canfranc and the old one converted to a hotel. Don't know where the gauge change will take place with the new line though and what form the service may take.
I have also read about this proposal but there are some significant problems/costs. The line closed after a derailment on the French side in 1970 which destroyed the L'Estanguet bridge and SNCF could not justify the costs of rebuilding the link. Add to that the fact that another bridge has since been destroyed by floods and some road widening works has also damaged some viaduct approaches, the costs of repairs would be very significant. The tunnel itself has been pierced in about a dozen places to provide escape routes from the Somport Road Tunnel and part of it houses a laboratory. The main Canfranc Station building is open to the public in summer - escorted groups only - booked through the Tourist Information Office.
 

AndrewE

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What a fascinating place, and great photos thanks. There's a proposal to reopen the line through the tunnel I understand, with a new station at Canfranc and the old one converted to a hotel. Don't know where the gauge change will take place with the new line though and what form the service may take.
I would guess simply an island platform (with the different gauges on opposite sides) somewhere outside the trainshed, just served by an EMU from each side of the border...
 

Chris999999

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I would guess simply an island platform (with the different gauges on opposite sides) somewhere outside the trainshed, just served by an EMU from each side of the border...
It may not be like that. Much of the pressure for this line is based on getting freight traffic off the roads on this route and on to rail. Spain already has dual gauge from Huesca to Zaragoza on the standard gauge line from Barcelona to Madrid, so extending it to Canfranc would not be a massive undertaking, and I think that commitment would be essential were the line to be rebuilt. Passenger traffic alone would never be enough. It is worth remembering that Canfranc was built for freight transfer between gauges, but I can't ever see that being reinstated. After all Spain has realised that to improve trade with the rest of Europe it needs to build standard gauge lines and has been doing so for the last 2 decades
 

MarcVD

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The Canfranc line will never have an significant freight traffic simply because the line profile would not allow it, something like 30 0/00 ruling grade, far too much for heavy trains. See how little traffic there is on the other transpyrenean line (Latour de Carol). The two coastal lines are underused too. And let's not even speak about the high speed line to Barcelona... Before dreaming about freight trains in the Aspe Valley, let's fill the natural freight corridors with traffic first. This reminds me the french minister Jean Claude Gayssot who wanted to run freight trains on the "ligne des Causses" (Clermont Beziers) 15 year ago...
 

Bletchleyite

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I would guess simply an island platform (with the different gauges on opposite sides) somewhere outside the trainshed, just served by an EMU from each side of the border...

It could probably easily be done Ormskirk or Kirkby style on a single platform as single-car DMUs are the norm at present - I would expect an increase in usage, but probably not to go to any more than about 4-car on each side.
 

AndrewE

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It could probably easily be done Ormskirk or Kirkby style on a single platform as single-car DMUs are the norm at present - I would expect an increase in usage, but probably not to go to any more than about 4-car on each side.
I just assumed that if the space is available it's easy to engineer out the worst consequences of an over-run (for whatever reason.) No buffer-stop, no collision! Don't terminating tube tunnels have an over-run bit, and wasn't that what caused the worst of the problem at Moorgate - or was that so bad that nothing would have reduced the damage?
 

61653 HTAFC

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I just assumed that if the space is available it's easy to engineer out the worst consequences of an over-run (for whatever reason.) No buffer-stop, no collision! Don't terminating tube tunnels have an over-run bit, and wasn't that what caused the worst of the problem at Moorgate - or was that so bad that nothing would have reduced the damage?
That (separate platforms with over-runs) would certainly remove much of that risk.

Moorgate NCL does and did have over-run space, as do most/all underground terminal platforms. The issue at Moorgate was down to the driver either being incapacitated, or deliberately causing the crash- and it's unlikely we'll ever know for certain which.

Changes have been introduced since Moorgate to reduce the impact of either of those things either happening, or being as disastrous. The length of the over-run at the time would probably have needed to be a few miles on a rising gradient with no juice-rail though, if it were to prevent the collision.
 

Adlington

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Ormskirk, Moorgate, Kirkby and Canfrance - how many other places can be squeezed into this thread?
 

AndrewE

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Ormskirk, Moorgate, Kirkby and Canfrance - how many other places can be squeezed into this thread?
You missed out Latour de Carol, plus (even further afield) all the Australian stuff in post 36!
 
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