Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

The Gran Metro, created in 1921, was not the first company created to build a metro line. That honour goes to the company Ferrocarril Metropolità de Barcelona, SA, known as El Transversal. However, it was the first to open and operate the first metropolitan train line in the city on 30 December 1924, covering a distance of 2,714 metres, with four stations,Lesseps, Diagonal, Aragó –the current Passeig de Gràcia– and Catalunya.

26 May 1921 was the day the company Gran Metropolitano de Barcelona, SA was officially established. It was tasked with building the metro line between Lesseps and Catalunya, the first to be opened in Barcelona, in 1924.

The Gran Metro, as it was popularly known, was not the first company created to build a metro line. That honour goes to the company Ferrocarril Metropolità de Barcelona, SA, known as el Transversal. However, it was the first to open and operate the first metropolitan train line in the city on 30 December 1924, covering a distance of 2,714 metres, with four stations,Lesseps, Diagonal, Aragó –the current Passeig de Gràcia– and Catalunya.

Later, on 1 May 1925, it opened the Fontana station and on 5 July that same year, it would extend the line to Liceu, at the heart of the Rambla.

Background

The project to provide the city with a metro started long before December 1924. It was considered to be the transport system of the future for big cities. London, New York and other major cities already had a metro, and the Catalan capital wanted one too.

The first movement came in 1907, at the hands of the engineers Pau Müller and Octavio Zaragoza, when they asked for a licence to build an underground railway that would link Ciutadella and Bonanova.

The State approved the project in 1912, but they were unable to secure funding and the project came to a halt. Also in 1912, another engineer, Fernando Reyes, presented a second plan for a metro that would cross Barcelona from Sants to Sant Martí. Once again, money was the obstacle that led to the project being put on hold.

Economic difficulties meant that Müller and Zaragoza were forced to transfer the licence they had been awarded by the State in 1912 to the Banco de Vizcaya . It was not until after the First World War that banks and business people dared to back projects for a metro in Barcelona.

So, in March 1921, the Banco Hispano Colonial, the company Tranvías de Barcelona, SA, Ferrocarriles de Cataluña and the Arnús-Garí consortium came together with the Banco de Vizcaya to set up the company Gran Metropolitano de Barcelona, SA. 

And 100 years ago today, 26 May, saw the signing of the founding deeds before a notary, with capital stock of 15 million pesetas.

The new company made some changes to the Müller and Zaragoza project. Two branch lines, one under the Rambla and the other under Via Laietana, would come together on Passeig de Gràcia to head up to Lesseps. Construction of the project began at the end of that year and was managed by the engineer Santiago Rubió i Tudurí. And in this way, Gran Metro opened a chapter in the history of Barcelona that is now one hundred years old.

Expansion of the metro network

In 1926, a couple of years after the first line started running, Gran Metro began operating a new branch, which was initially known as line II and which connected Aragó station and Jaume I.

Shortly after, the line was extended down to the bottom of  Via Laietana, up to a stop in front of what is now the Correus building, which is no longer in service.

In addition to these two lines, the company’s projects included the construction of three more lines:One to the north, which went from Lesseps to Sant Gervasi i Horta, another orbital route which also started at Lesseps and went to Estació de França passing through Corts, Sants, Hostafrancs, Poble-sec, La Rambla, Avinguda de la Catedral and Ciutadella Park, and a third line that ran from Estació de França to Liceu. All the lines were connected with each other.

After 40 years in service, the history of this pioneering company came to a close with the municipalisation of public transport, which began in the 1950s. A process that would conclude in 1961, when the Societat Privada Municipal Ferrocarril Metropolità de Barcelona — a name inherited from the old Transversal – absorbed the company Gran Metropolitano de Barcelona.

SOURCE: TMB