1906: The Start of Service for a Funicular Railway in Barcelona

October 24, 1906

On Spain’s northeastern coast, operations began for the Vallvidrera Funicular in the district of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi in the city of Barcelona. This cable railway system was built on a steep slope of a hill that is part of the Collserola mountain range.

The funicular serves as a link between the neighborhood of Vallvidrera on a side of that hill and – down below – a station of the railway route known as the Barcelona-Vallès Line. The Vallvidrera Funicular’s uppermost station was jointly designed by architects Bonaventura Conill i Montobbio (1875-1946) and Arnald Calvet i Peyronill (1874-1956).

While describing Barcelona in an article that was published in National Geographic magazine in 1929, world-renowned writer and explorer Harriet Chalmers Adams (1875-1937) singled out both the Vallvidrera Funicular and a similar means of transit on the nearby hill of Tibidabo. She noted that “on Tibidabo and the adjoining hill of Vallvidrera, the lights of the two funicular railways glide up and down like so many fairy lanterns.”

Measuring 2,417 feet (736.6 meters) in length, the Vallvidrera Funicular was completely rebuilt in 1998 and converted into an automated line. The accompanying photo of this system was taken in 2014.  

Photo Credit: Pere López (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)

For more information on the Vallvidrera Funicular, please check out  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallvidrera_Funicular

A video of this railway system can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDtcyzYNAtw