The 22nd of October of 1998 the Prince Felipe de Borbón opened in Gijón the Asturias Railway Museum, one of the completest Museums in Spain, both because of its area and because of its contents. This new museum offers to the visitors the posibility of doing a route through the railway history, a transport that has just reached its 150 anniversay in Spain.
The SHE 5 engine, built by Corpet (France) in 1891 with the number 542 for the 600 mm railway of the old Spanish Coal Society Aller Minings. It is completely repaired and it works all Saturdays for the Museum visitors. It is the only one with Brown distribution in service in Spain. .
Steam engines, diesel ones, coaches, different types of rails, streetlamps, oilcans... Who has not hear talking about the remembered third class some time -with uncomfortable wood seats- that marked the origin of the passengers railway?. These elements and many other ones and different collections are joined in the Asturias Railway Museum, an initiative of the Gijón Town Council, operated by the Culture, Education and Pupular University Fundation, that tries to take its visitors through a historic and cultural route about the railway world in Asturias, its origin and its development.
Travelling by train has represented and represents a particular experience. For some people was a kind of ceremony that begun with the journey preparations, following with the arrival at the station and continuing in the moment in which they accessed to a one of these limping wood trains, dragged by a steam engines, that in spite of its low velocity, permited go to very far places. From this beginning to the preset , the fast development of the communications has made that the railway has a new rolw in the transport, developing the commuter trains, the tourist journeys and the city transport (underground and streetcar). The Asturias Railway Museum will help the people interested in the trains and the curiouses to to get in or to study in depth in this world that run on rails since 150 years ago.
Deutz Kg 125 BS Locotractor from 1966 (númber 58104). Built for the Spanish Coal Society. In service in 600 mm rails.
MORE THAN A CENTURY OF ASTURIAS RAILWAY
The birth of the railway in Asturias was a direct consequence of the Industrial Revolution and provoked a big change in the passengers and goods transport. This new transport not only permited to do journeys that were impossible to do before, but changed the customs of the journeys, improved the industrial and mining development and the economic and social groth of the region. With the pass of the time, the train will have to compete with new transports and because of that is specializated in the great loads transport and commuter trains.
En 1852 the first sector of a Gijón-Carbayín line was opened for the people. This line was owned by a public service Asturias railway: The Langreo Railway. Travelling by train was replacing the horses and the carts, the distances were been shortened and the time of the journeys too, until being a massive transport. The way of travel and the conditions of the journeys in its beginning were evolving at the same time of the railway, but its image remains in the colective memory.
Goods transport train in big rail, formed by one B&W engine number 3 of HUNOSA, rail waggon and UNINSA works, ENSIDESA waggon, Gijón Port Council unified waggon and Mieres factory waggon.
The Asturias network was formed by railways differentiated according with the rail wide that is used and operated along its history by different railway companies. The big wide lines were operated in the beginning by the Norhwest Spanish Railway Company. After that the operation was passed to the Asturias-Galicia-León Railways. In 1885 Iron Ways from the Norh of Spain was included and in 1941 all the lines passed to Renfe. The Railway Company of Langreo was the only one that used an international rail wide and was included in Feve.
The railway lines of Asturias never reached to configurate a real railway network because of the land ruggedness and because of the railway introduction way in this zone. About the goods transport, its development depended of the economic interests and not because of a desire of developing the region. The railway plan applicated in Asturias had as the first purpose of export the coal and the iron and steel products and it did not produces a transformation in the space, but its influence was noticed in the mines, in Oviedo and in the Gijón and Avilés ports.
DUFEL 2002 electric engine, built by Duro Felguera for the Mieres factory. 600 mm rail. It is one of the industrial and mine materials that it is possible to see in the Museum.
The interior networks of the mining and iron and steed works, out of the public service, were used both for the coal transport and to put in relationship the production phases or to export the manufactured articles. In Asturias it is known the existence of at least a hundred and fifty industrial railways. This two economic sectors hided that the principality had other resorts in the final of the XIX century like an important food sector, glass factories, electricity, etc., that gived to the Asturias industrial sector an aspect much more rich and varied.
A last important aspect in the evolution of the Asturias railway has been the technological dependence in relation to the foreign countries. The first engines were brought from the United Kindom. After that, the machines will be supplied by Belgium, France, United States and Germany, and in some cases from spanish builders. The Asturias industry was not able to develop a railway manufacturing activity. The manufacture of railway material was not done in the region and the few existing cases have been copies of the foreign designs. Names like José Elduayen, Lino José Palacios, Jerónimo Ibrán, Justo del Castillo, etc., were some of the technnicians that projected, built and directed the Asturias Railways.
Exterior view of the Asturias Railway Museum main entrance from the west beach of Gijón.
A MUSEUM WITH HISTORY
With the construction of a new railway network in Gijón, the North station closed its service. Thanks of an agreement signed by Renfe and the Town Council and because of the abandonment of this equipments, there were be transfered more than 12.000 square meters of land, including the ols passengers build, with the condition of that they will have to be used for cultural and social purposes. From this moment, the Town Council will work in an initial plan of development for the Asturias Railway Museum.
The building that is used as central office of the Museum, was built between 1872 and 1873 with the supervision of Melitón Martín, head engineer of the Northwest Railway Company. It was put in service in 1874, date of the opening of the Gijón-Pola de Lena sector and was opened until 1990. The architecture works for the adaptation of the equipments to the Museum were be done in three phases. In a first moment, it was repaired the old building of the North station and it was be built a paralell built, joining the two constructions with a porch. The works reintegrated many original elements of the built, overcoat in the interior of the first floor. After that it will built the perimeter of the Museum area, with a lenght of more than 650 meters and, in a last phase, the works were based in the needs of the Museum, both for the permanent showing and the needs of the visitors, and for the internal work of the institution and the heritage recovery.
The first construction phase of the Museum was financed thanks fo the European Structural Funds, through the RESIDER program 1989-1991 (Iron and Steel Sector Restructure Program). At the same time, it was done the Railway Material Inventory, that was an urgent need of protection and was the first step for a permanent collection.
The Asturias Railway Museum was created with the objective of being the most importan center to know the History of the Asturias Raiway and to protect the past testimonies. The Museum not only offers a view of the past, but tries to show the keys for the understanding of the future process. The main purposes are centered in the investigation, protection, documentation and communication.
SHE 5 (Corpet 542/1891, 600 rail) and SAF 1 (Henschel 2494/1952, 1674 rail). The two ones, with the other two steam vehicles and three diesel ones are put in service periodically.
"THE MUSEUM AS A COUNTRYSIDE, THE COUNTRYSIDE OF THE MUSEUM"
The Museum is a centre in with it is presented the social and economic history of the railway world. The reasons for the railway creation, the reasons of the railway in Asturias, the influence in the region development, who sere the builders, what was the financing, who worked in it, who and how it was used, etc., are some of the questions that the Museum tries to answer.
The objectives of this design are defined with a metaphor: "The Museum as a countryside, the countryside of the Museum". The showing has been built with different subject units and a rich joint of colection items, where the visitor will be able to do an own itinerary. As a complement, one part of the movile material that is repaired, will run the exterior area of the Museum and the visitors will participate in the experience of travelling into steam engines.
The railway chronology and history and its introduction in Asturias, industrial and railway material, colections (rails, telefonic material, lamps and signals, tickets, oilcains, etc.), theme joints (the passengers railway, the railwaymen, the companies, the engineers, the engines, the industry and the mining), different routes with the objective of each visitor is able to design an own itinerary in the Museum, according with their interest and temporal showings to complement the permanent showing (like the new streetcar of Gijón), are some of the contents offered to the visitor.
The railway and industrial heritage in Asturias is one of the richest in Spain. The colection of the Museum is composed by a total of more than a thousand items. A hundred of them are movile material (engines, coaches and other vehicles). The joint has been as one of the most importants in Europe. The Museum has a Documentation Service with an archive, a library and different services for the visitors like rest areas, technical advise, commertial area, etc.
