Is Europe's ghostliest train station about to rise again?

It was one of the world's most opulent railway stations, sitting imposingly on the French-Spanish border - but then it fell into disrepair. Now, writes Chris Bockman, the building is showing new signs of life.

When they built the station at Canfranc, it was on a grand scale and with no expense spared. It had to be bold and modern - an architect's dream come true, built in iron and glass, complete with a hospital, restaurant and living quarters for customs officers from both France and Spain.

At the time it was nicknamed the "Titanic of the Mountains". 

To give you an idea of its size - there are 365 windows, one for each day of the year; hundreds of doors; and the platforms are more than 200m long. The question is, how did such an extravagant station, high up on a mountainside in a village with a population of just 500 people, ever see the light of day?

At the turn of the 20th Century, the Spanish and French authorities had a grand project to open up their border through the Pyrenees, enabling more international trade and travel. It was a remarkably ambitious scheme, involving dozens of bridges and a series of tunnels drilled through the mountains.

At one point, work stalled as the French workers were sent off to fight in World War One. They were replaced by Spanish counterparts.

 The station was built just to the Spanish side of the border, but one of the platforms was still considered French territory - like a kind of foreign embassy. French police and customs staff sent their children to a French-speaking school installed in the village.

But the day the station was opened in 1928 by the French President Gaston Doumergue and Spanish King Alfonso XIII, flaws quickly became apparent.

The rail gauges were different, so passengers still had to change trains. It made transporting goods as freight too slow. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 didn't help.

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From BBC News