Just look at this ticket hall! It once formed part of a grand station - a turn-of-the-century Franco-Spanish project designed to open up their borders and encourage international trade and travel. The station was built just to the Spanish side of the border and finished in 1928. From the start, the project was doomed. Nobody had taken into account the uncomfortable fact that rail gauges in Spain and France were different. Furthermore, The Wall Street Crash of 1929 did not help matters and the railway line never really took off.
During the Spanish civil war, Franco closed the tunnels on the Spanish side in order to stop Republicans from bringing in weapons. The line reopened during WW2 and the route was used by Jews and escaped Allied soldiers. Apparently, the Germans also used the line to transport gold and pieces of art they had stolen. The railway rumbled on until 1970 when it was closed for good. There are now, apparently, plans to reopen the line.
For me, the station is a hub of inspiration. I can already see novels with titles like "Midnight Train to Lisbon" or "Last Train to Catalonia" or "Endstation Freedom." The novels' characters already haunt the ticket hall. You can see their heads appearing up the stairs behind the table. Who are they? That is for you to decide.
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