The International Train Station in Canfranc was inaugurated in 1928. It is a monumental building designed by the engineer Fernando Ramírez de Dampierre and it was built as part of a larger project to create a link between Spain and France through the Pyrenees by means of the Somport tunnel (excavated in 1915). The station was the most representative and symbolic expression of an ambitious railway project, carried out with countless interruptions and delays over the course of 75 years.

Two companies, Midi Francés and Norte de España presented the Project for the international station between 1909 and 1910. Although initially other locations were considered (including Villanua), the option suggested by the engineer Joaquin Bellido was finally chosen. This required the levelling of the Arañones valley (next to the Somport tunnel) to accommodate the buildings, the railway sidings and the warehouses.

Construction work on the station began in 1921 and was completed in 1925. The railway’s activity peaked in the 1940s coinciding with the Second World War, when it was used as a form of transport across the border as part of numerous expansion and resistance strategies. After several decades of sporadic activity, the international railway was definitively shut down in April of 1970 after the collapse of the L’Estanguet bridge in France. Although the train still goes as far as Canfranc on the Spanish side, the station fell into disuse and has recently been partially restored for other purposes. Some of the original features of the building have been modified, such as the slate roof, which has been replaced by corrugated iron.

In terms of architectural structure, the station has a main building (measuring 241m in length), several docks for the transfer of merchandise and sheds for the locomotives. It is made of reinforced concrete, iron and glass which were common in the industrial architecture of that period. The station building is made up of seven totally independent sections with the main passenger hall and its characteristic dome presiding in the centre.