Pretty interesting
En 1917, Alfonso XIII put up a large sum of his personal finances to create the Compañía Metropolitano Alfonso XIII, which bore his name in recognition of his large donation. In 1919, the first line of the Metro of Madrid, and of Spain as a whole, was opened. It consisted of one three-kilometer line which connected seven stations between Cuatro Caminos and La Puerta del Sol. To make a comparison, the current Metro of Madrid network consists of 292 stations and 14 different lines.
One of the stations affected by the growth of the underground network was Chamberí Station, which was closed in 1966 for being too close to other stations and situated on less-than-ideal terrain. Soon after, it became known as one of Madrid’s famous “ghost stations,” and, eventually, was forgotten entirely. The Metro trains continue to pass by it, but nothing more. However, in 2006, work began to renovate the station and create the Chamberí Station Museum, although this didn’t stop groups of vandals from entering and damaging parts of the station.
The installations and ceramic tiles are very well preserved, despite all the years of neglect. The station is as it was in 1919: the furniture, tile-work advertisements, and timetable/fee plaques are all original. Our guide informed us, among other things, that they used high-gloss reflective ceramics to give a greater sense of space and that the tile work was predominately white to help reduce the sensation of being underground. The gate mechanisms are also pretty interesting: there are small platforms embedded in the ground just before the gates that, when pressed, open the gates automatically. Evidently, there were people who, just like today, used this trick to pass through the gates without paying. Although, in those days, the Law was something altogether different….
