Somosierra

• 1. Introduction

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  Somosierra is a municipality in the Community of Madrid, perched at 1433 metres above sea level in a mountain pass bearing its own name. It stands 83 kilometres north of Madrid, making it the northernmost town in the whole region. More than a century apart, two different armies fought for control of this same mountain crossing. Today only a pair of local bus routes connect Somosierra to the outside world. That is a striking change for a village that once had its own train station. What made this narrow pass through the mountains worth fighting for twice, and why did the trains stop running?

• 2. Two Wars, One Pass

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  In 1808, armies collided at Somosierra in a clash remembered as the Battle of Somosierra, part of the wider Napoleonic Wars. Nearby, decades later in 1936, gunfire returned to these same mountains in the Battle of Guadarrama, fought this time amid the Spanish Civil War. The same narrow gap in the mountains that carried travelers north from Madrid also carried two of Spain's most turbulent conflicts through it. Long after the guns fell silent, the pass would face a different kind of disruption, one that would eventually sever Somosierra from the railway running through it.

• 3. The Line That Stopped

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  Two bus lines now provide the only way in or out of Somosierra. Line 191 runs between Madrid and Buitrago, and line 191B continues from Buitrago on to Somosierra itself. A railway once ran this same route, the line between Madrid and Burgos, threading north through the village. That railway even had its own stop, named Robregordo-Somosierra, although the station never actually served Somosierra itself. In 2011, a landslide struck the Somosierra tunnel, and the trains that had once climbed through the pass stopped running for good. More than a decade after that landslide sealed the tunnel, the road remains the only way into Somosierra.