A night ride in a 1924 metro carriage

TMB (Barcelona’s public transport company) really does come up with some great initiatives, and this underground metro ride through Barcelona’s history is one of them. Last Thursday it brought out several 300-series carriages, the ones that opened the Gran Metropolitano de Barcelona on 30 December 1924 and stayed in service for more than 60 years, until 1987. Does anyone remember them?

The outside of the train is maroon, black and gold, and it’s beautifully preserved. Inside, with fluorescent lights added in 1949, it isn’t vastly different from today’s trains. But it’s fun to see the little period notices such as ‘Prohibido terminantemente escupir’ (Spitting strictly prohibited), signs you no longer see these days, but which could easily still apply.

The train set off with quite a jolt, knocking more than one of us off balance, which raised a few laughs and made travelling back in time that bit easier.

During the trip we were accompanied by two ticket inspectors in period costume, and we had the invaluable company of Gaudí, who told us the history of Barcelona’s metro as we went along.

What I didn’t like was how crowded it was. I’d rather have paid a bit more and had fewer of us on board, because if the carriages had 24 seats, there must have been about 50 people per carriage. At least that’s how it felt.

Part of the fun of the trip was that we changed lines and arrived at a ghost station from the 1960s that was never used as such. I’d heard they were decorating it specially for the event, but that wasn’t the case, and it was just a station like any other. Mind you, there was a small drink and a chocolate snack, which I’d rather have skipped at that time of night, thinking about how many hours of sleep I had left.