You’d think I’d come to Spain for the weather or the food. Everyone else does. But no. I came for the tracks. And not even the shiny ones, either. I’ve got a thing for the forgotten lines. The rusty ones. The ones no one’s patched up in decades because some minister with a spreadsheet decided lorries were better.
Spain’s full of them.
Abandoned stations with wildflowers growing where the ticket kiosk used to be. Stray dogs sleeping under signal posts. Entire platforms crumbling into dry earth, like they’re trying to disappear before anyone remembers they existed.
Sue says I’m obsessed. “They’re just old railways, Bill.”
No. They’re history. They’re dignity, faded. Like a good pair of shoes left out in the rain.
Villalba to Berzosa: A Walk Along a Ghost
Found one not far outside Madrid. The old line from Villalba to Berzosa. Used to take mountain folk in and out of the sierra—schoolkids, shopkeepers, soldiers on leave. Then they closed it. Replaced it with a bus route that hasn’t run since 1997.
Now it’s a walking trail. Mostly. The sleepers are still there in places, though they’ve rotted into black sponges. You can follow the cuttings, trace where the embankments rise, see where it all once hummed with purpose.
I stood on what used to be a platform at Bustarviejo. Dry stone, a rusted bench. The metal sign had gone, but the bolts were still there. You can read a lot from bolts.
A goat barked at me, which I didn’t know goats could do. I barked back. We both agreed to keep our distance.
These Weren’t Just Trains
People forget what these lines meant. They weren’t tourist attractions. They were lifelines. Farming villages that couldn’t sell tomatoes without them. Kids who wouldn’t have gone to school otherwise. Postal workers who needed to get the pension money through. And now? All gone quiet. Just the wind and the odd bloke like me, poking around like he’s hoping to hear a whistle.
Spain had hundreds of these lines. Closed in bursts—some during Franco, some in the ’80s and ’90s when everything started going digital and cities swallowed the map. Now they lie in bits. Some have been turned into cycling routes—vías verdes, they call them. Green ways. Bit of a nice idea, that. But others just sit, sinking into themselves.
There’s an old roundhouse in Águilas, down south. Half-collapsed, but you can still smell coal if you stand long enough. A bloke there told me the last loco left in ’85, but he didn’t sound sure. He said his dad cried the day they took the turntable apart. Said it felt like burying a dog.
I’m Not a Sentimental Man, But—
I carry a pocket notebook, still. Sue says it’s because I don’t trust my memory. That’s part of it. But really, it’s to log coordinates. Locations. Lines worth visiting. Bits that still whisper, even if they’ve gone to seed.
I’ve marked out twelve routes I want to walk this year. Not full treks. Just snippets. Enough to feel the shape of what once moved there.
Spain’s got the AVE, sure. Fast, clean, glorious. But it also has these forgotten limbs. The knackered ones. And I reckon they deserve a look.
Even if it means dodging the occasional goat.
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