Once hailed as the “Titanic of the Pyrenees”, Canfranc International Station, in northern Spain, has been plagued by disaster, derailment and decades of abandonment. Now, almost 100 years after its grand opening, the Beaux-Arts giant has been reborn as a five-star hotel – and could soon welcome international trains again.
Monstrous in scale, yet elegant in design, Canfranc International Station’s 200m-long, Beaux-Arts facade seems curiously out of place in a mountain village of just 500 residents. But this behemoth, tucked away high in the Spanish Pyrenees, isn’t merely incongruous; it’s often called Europe’s unluckiest train station.
When it opened to great fanfare in 1928, the lavish new transit hub was meant to shuttle hundreds of thousands of passengers between Canfranc and the French city of Pau, but almost from the start, misfortune struck: A fire gutted the building just three years later; the Great Depression slowed repairs; then the Spanish Civil War ground services to a halt. During World War Two, Canfranc became a hotbed of intrigue where Jewish refugees, escaped POWs and downed Allied airmen were smuggled across the border from Nazi-occupied France under the noses of German soldiers and Gestapo agents stationed on the French-controlled side. In 1970, a disastrous train derailment destroyed a key bridge on the French side, severing the line for good. The station was abandoned soon after.
Almost a century after its opening, however, the “Titanic of the Pyrenees” – as it became known – is finally turning its bad luck around. In 2023, after years of renovation, the station reopened as a five-star hotel, while plans are afoot to rebuild the lost international rail route through the mountains.
“Welcome to Canfranc Estacion,” said receptionist Maria Camara, as you check in after a long day’s travel into the mountains. Like all the staff at the formerly derelict station-turned-luxury hotel, Camara was dressed in a 1920s-inspired uniform designed to evoke a sense of rail nostalgia. She is stationed in a grand, vaulted lobby that was once the ticketing hall. “I hope you enjoyed your journey,” she added, as the bellboy strolls over with a tray of Champagne.
The journey to arrive there, however, isn’t quite as enjoyable as the welcome drink. The Barcelo Group may have transformed Canfranc International Station into an opulent hotel – complete with an indoor swimming pool and spa, an Art Deco bar and a Michelin-starred restaurant serving regional cuisine within a restored wagon – but railway infrastructure to get there remains in a state of disrepair.
Starting early in the morning in San Sebastian, in Spain’s mountainous Basque Country, train cancellations often force you onto a rail replacement bus to Zaragoza, Aragon’s regional capital. From there, the domestic train to Canfranc – the only part of the line still in use – is often closed for upgrades. That requires catching another train to Huesca and a final rail replacement bus into Canfranc, arriving as the sun dips behind the peaks.
It would shock the original engineers and architects to find passengers arriving at their opulent station by bus, but even after the long trip, you are awed by the mammoth size and grandeur of the station/hotel. Surrounded by snow-capped Pyrenean peaks, at an altitude of 1,036m, this was the second-largest station in Europe when it was opened by the King of Spain and the President of France in July 1928. “It was a magnificent building,” said Francisco Polo Muriel, a rail historian at the Museo del Ferrocarril (Railway Museum) in Madrid. “It featured a splendid international hotel, a quarantine facility, and, with its palatial size and design, it was equipped with housing, administrative offices, customs and commercial facilities, and railway operations spaces for both countries.”
On the lobby’s northern wall, is a French coat of arms. One end of the station was once sovereign French territory where French customs and immigration officers undertook border formalities for travellers entering or leaving France, while Spanish officials worked the opposite end. The lobby is as much a museum as a hotel reception. “It’s a very historic hotel,” said Camara from behind the elegant wooden reception, which is styled like a ticketing counter.
Plans were first drawn up for a railway through the Somport Pass, between Spain and France, in the mid-19th Century and construction began in 1882. French and Spanish engineers spent almost two decades carving the Somport Railway Tunnel through the mountain itself. When the French bridge collapse of 1970 ended through services, Canfranc’s decline seemed inevitable. “From 1928 to the present day,” said Polo Muriel, “we can say that the line has only seen 26 years of full operations.” Fires, wars and economic downturns had all taken their toll. But Canfranc’s curious story didn’t end there. The station’s rebirth, said the hotel’s assistant general manager Pilar Alfaro, was about preserving a national treasure. “The station has long captivated imaginations with its grandeur and mystery,” she said. “By restoring it, we aimed to breathe new life into its majestic structure while honouring its past.”
More opportunities for renewal are on the horizon. With ever-increasing road traffic through the Pyrenees, the European Union is helping fund the reconstruction of the 310km Zaragoza-Pau line, which could reopen in 2028. Pilar said this would be a game-changer. “It would reconnect the region with France, fostering cross-border tourism. For the hotel, it would mean welcoming more international guests arriving by train, adding to the romantic allure of the journey itself.”
The Somport Railway Tunnel is currently being rehabilitated and upgrades have been completed on the domestic Zaragoza-Canfranc line. This means that rail enthusiasts and history buffs hoping to relive the nostalgic highs of 1920s European train travel no longer need to arrive in Canfranc by rail replacement bus. Instead, they can travel by train through the Pyrenees to spend the night in luxury at what was once Europe’s unluckiest train station. It’s certainly on my Bucket List.
