Puntos de Interés
Infrastructure
La Engaña Tunnel
Located between the provinces of Cantabria and Burgos, and with its almost 7,000 metres long, La Engaña Tunnel was, for several decades, the longest railway tunnel in Spain. It was undoubtedly the crowning achievement of the unfinished Santander-Mediterranean Railway project, which was intended to link the seaports of Santander and Sagunto.
However, what was one of the most ambitious railway projects in Spain was never finished.
This infrastructure, measuring 8 metres wide, 6.5 metres high and 116 metres high, was designed with the intention of crossing the Cantabrian Mountains. The engineers therefore sought to reduce the steep slope that existed between the towns of Merindad de Valdeporres and Valle del Pas.
It took eight years and 12-hour days in practically subhuman conditions to drill the infrastructure. Free workers participated in the works, but also about 700 republican prisoners of the civil war who worked to obtain redemption from their sentences; each day worked redeemed two days of their sentence.
Still in ruins, at the access to the south mouth of the tunnel, some of the constructions that were built in those times still stand the test of time. The station building, the platform, as well as the warehouses that were planned. Next to them, the houses destined to function as housing for the staff that would manage the station. A little further away, the barracks of those who, with their sweat, made this mammoth construction possible, a small chapel and the river channelling works that gives its name to this huge tunnel that never housed the train tracks.
This infrastructure was the end of the railway project since, in the mid-twentieth century, the works were be paralysed when there were only 35 kilometres left to link the stations of Cidad-Dosante and Santander.
However, to this project we owe other nearby constructions of great relevance that have remained as a witness of what could have been and was not, such as the viaduct over the river Nela and the imposing retaining wall of Quintanabaldo.