Peaceful carnage

 We advance across the floodplain and the fields towards the Ebro.  We will go near the Municipal Swimming pool.  I am told it opens from 12 till 8.  Given it is one of the standard kidney shaped paddling and rectangular open air jobs I wonder if the pool is really open given the average temperature is only 11oC.  Maybe it refers to the gym next door.    Five months ago Sego said ‘Very beautiful, well maintained and worth visiting for a good rest.’    Asun added ‘A quiet, beautiful pool, well maintained and with fantastic treatment from all the staff who work there’

The bridge over the Ebro confuses people    Google maps marks the Apartadero Gelsa.  As one reviewer notes - it is not there.

We are just south of Quinto.  On 25 th August 1937  the British battalion of the International Brigades took part in street fighting to capture the Nationalist strongpoint at Quinto, where Wintringham, now head of the Officer's School and attached to the American Lincoln and Canadian MacKenzie/Papineau battalions, was shot again, this time badly and injured out of the war. The battalion attacked a strong Fascist position at Purburrel Hill, and was repelled by intense rifle and machine gun fire. The following day another assault was made on the hill, supported by the XVth Brigade antitank artillery battery, and this time the attack succeeded. Heavy fighting had reduced the battalion to 100 men, and a number of Spanish Republican troops were drafted as reinforcements for the battalion.

We are in one of those places where a railway track has been squeezed in by the river as the only convenient route to Zaragoza.  You know, we haven’t talked much about railways so less do so. ‘The first railway line in the Iberian Peninsula was built in 1848 between Barcelona and Mataró. In 1851 the Madrid-Aranjuez line was opened. In 1852 the first narrow gauge line was built; in 1863 a line reached the Portuguese border. By 1864 the Madrid-Irún line had been opened, and the French border reached.  In 1900 the first line to be electrified was La Poveda-Madrid.

A major company, the Compañía de los Ferrocarriles de Madrid a Zaragoza y Alicante  (MZA), was constituted in 1856 as joint venture of the Marquis of Salamanca and the Rothschilds. Primarily led by the Péreires, its main rival was the Compañía de los Caminos de Hierro del Norte de España ('Norte'), constituted in 1858.  We once turned a little corner of Yorkshire into a train on the MZA for a 1930s event.

 One key development was the decision, taken at an early stage, that Spain's railways should be built to an unusual broad track gauge of 1,672 or six Castilian feet.  Some believe that the choice of gauge was influenced by Spain's hostility to neighbouring France during the 1850s: it was believed that making the Spanish railway network incompatible with that of France would hinder any French invasion. Other sources state that that decision was taken to allow bigger engines that could have enough power to climb the steep passes of a mountainous country such as Spain. As a result, Portuguese railways were also built to a broad gauge (roughly the same, 1,664 mm or 5 ft 5  in, but rounded to five Portuguese feet). In 1955 Spain and Portugal decided to halve this difference of 8 mm, and defined their gauge to be 1,668 mm  called Iberian gauge.  This did not help international journeys.

Following the mess of the Civil War, RENFE was created in 1941 and nationalised the railways,  The net work topped at 19000km in the 1950s but by 1993 8000km of the unprofitable lines were dismantled.  The last steam service ended in 1975.

Tomorrow we head down the valley.