The three main railway operators in Catalonia (Renfe, Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat and Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona) publicly agreed a few days ago to recognize the need for Barcelona to have a large public transport museum. A space that other big cities in the world have and that shines because of its absence in the Catalan capital, where trains could be exhibited that help explain the history and evolution of the sector and the country.
While waiting for this chronic lack to become a reality, in which all the companies would be involved, everyone is doing what they can and where they can. Yesterday, FGC opened a new space for the preservation of historical heritage. A ship next to the Martorell Central coach depots that has been named Espai de la via métrica and where you can visit more than twenty locomotives, cars and wagons that served the Llobregat-Anoia line throughout the century 20th
The oldest are steam locomotives, subjected to the corresponding restoration work and which transport visitors back a century. There are other trains on display, on the other hand, that are much more recent, such as the 211 series, active since the late eighties and retired in 2009. In this case they activate memories from not so many years ago, when the stations were not yet they had doors with validating machines and you had to open a door to go from one car to another. Among them, diesel tractors and a saloon car from when there were still classes.
The historical journey does not end here. On the three tracks of more than 100 meters in length, you can see both passenger and freight trains, since on this line the convoys that have transported the material extracted from the mines of potash or the cars manufactured by Seat, to give two examples that can be seen passing between passenger trains today. A fuel tank wagon and another silo stand out.
Even if the public company of the Generalitat welcomes the creation of a large museum in Barcelona, it is not futile that this space has opened in Martorell. "The pieces must be contextualized in the territory in which they have been operating", assured the president of FGC, Toni Segarra, during the inauguration of the heritage space.
Its construction on the site of the old locomotive workshop has been carried out to coincide with infrastructure improvement actions at this station, which it seems will have to play a fundamental role in the future extension of line 8 from Plaza España to Gràcia. It will be in Martorell where many of the new trains that will serve a line that in the coming years will aspire to double the number of passengers and that perhaps future generations will be able to see one day in a museum in Barcelona, will start and end their journey.
