A trip to Barcelona's ghost station, frozen in time.

BarcelonaFor more than half a century, very few people have been able to access one of Barcelona's best-kept secrets. Practically only metro maintenance workers and the occasional graffiti-loving vandal have been able to set foot in the ghost Correos station, closed in 1972 after only 38 years in operation. Early Tuesday morning, however, on the occasion of the metro's centenary events, TMB allowed several lucky people to stroll along the platform of a station that remains frozen in time.

Walking the almost 300 meters of track that separate Jaime I station from Correos station is like going through a time tunnel. This is corroborated by one of the advertisements still on the walls, a 1971 election poster encouraging people to vote for Eduardo Tarragona, "the voice of the voiceless," according to his slogan. The campaign must have been effective because, as the chronicles of the timeTarragona –a businessman in the furniture sector– unexpectedly defeated Juan Antonio Samaranch.

It is not the only vestige of the past that remains intact in the Correus station, where the red letters that form the sign of Mail -in Spanish- and advertisements for furniture stores and yogurt shops. These were the last signs at a station that, after 38 years in operation, saw the extension of the line (the current L4) towards Barceloneta leave it without service. Today, the metro no longer stops, and the entrance through which it was accessed, in Plaça Idrissa Diallo, can only be seen in films such as PO Box 1001.

And why did the station stop operating? Opened in 1934, it was for a long time the last stop on the second branch of the Gran Metro (the first descended along La Rambla in what would be the embryo of today's L3). When the line was extended, it was considered optimal to create a new station closer to Estacion de Francia, and the Correos station was set aside, as it was considered too close to the Jaume I stops and the new Barceloneta station.

270 lucky ones

Since then, trains have continued to pass by, but without stopping. Passengers with keen eyesight will be able to see it when traveling on Line 4 between Jaume I and Barceloneta. But visiting it will be more difficult. The 270 tickets for six nights in October and November sold out quickly, and TMB admits that it's not easy to make visits repeatable: the fact that it's only accessible in the early morning when the metro service isn't running and the fact that it has to be done through a tunnel and over the tracks makes it difficult.