For more than a century, iron ore has been the raw material on which the economic development of Bizkaia has been based. Its extraction irreversibly altered the landscape and forced the construction, in a short space of time, of innumerable engineering structures associated with mining, even leading to the appearance of new population centres in places where they had never existed before.
However, as mining gradually disappeared, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, the lands that once housed the mining operations were slowly abandoned, remaining as silent witnesses of an industrial past that marked both the territory and its inhabitants. The voracious extractive activity generated strangely modelled landscapes. Disseminated by this somewhat disturbing relief, only a small part of the constructions associated with mining have survived to the present day. In this chapter we will review some of them.
The funicular railway of La Reineta
This engineering work, located in the municipality of Trapagaran, connects the lower part of the town with the upper district of La Reineta. Opened in 1926, it was designed to alleviate the isolation of the mining area of La Arboleda and the Triano mountains. With a length of 1,179 metres and a gradient of 342 metres, it is the longest funicular railway in the Basque Country and the second longest in Spain. Its route includes a single curve to reach the upper station. The stations were designed by Diego de Basterra in regionalist style. Managed by Euskotren, it was renovated in 1985 and declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in 2014.
The mining village of La Arboleda
A short distance from the top station of the La Reineta funicular railway is the mining village of La Arboleda. It is in the midst of a landscape of mysterious beauty, characterised by the presence of large lagoons, which are nothing more than the enormous craters, filled with water, generated by the activity of the open-cast mines.
Despite the passage of time and the consequent changes in use and lifestyles, the village still retains the ability to evoke that mining past. La Arboleda arose, at the end of the 19th century, from the need to accommodate the large number of immigrants who came to work in the mines. Gradually, it became a centre in its own right, with its own services, such as a school, a commissary, a hospital, a church, Civil Guard barracks, a cinema, a town hall, etc.
It still shows a rich typology of miners’ dwellings, including some examples of wooden houses, vestiges of that first industrial revolution and its harsh living conditions.
A singular element is the kiosk that stands in the square in front of the church. From its platform, the workers and trade union leaders of the first moments of socialism used to harangue the miners, in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century.
Peñas Negras
About three kilometres from La Arboleda is the Peñas Negras environmental interpretation centre. It is an educational facility managed by the Basque Government, whose aim is to raise awareness of the importance of caring for the environment. It offers various resources such as a permanent exhibition, temporary exhibitions, educational material, signposted routes and informative activities. It also organises programmes to raise awareness of the region’s mining history and its natural environment, including guided tours of the former mining area of La Arboleda.
Mining Museum
The Mining Museum of the Basque Country, in Gallarta (Abanto-Zierbena), is located in a privileged setting, with impressive views of the old Concha II mine, one of the largest in Europe in its time.
What we see today of this mine is an immense, terraced cavern that sinks to 27 metres below sea level. The search for the best ore forced the entire population of the original Gallarta, originally located at this point, to move to the site where it is today. The historic trade union leader Dolores Ibárruri ‘Pasionaria’ was born in this almost forgotten Gallarta.
The museum houses one of the largest collections of tools and objects related to mining activity, collected over the years. Along with the more academic and educational approaches, visitors are also offered experiences linked to the universe of emotions, memories and experiences of those people who have been the soul of an entire culture.
The Montes de Hierro greenway
This 39 km route allows you to explore, on foot or by bicycle, the heart of the mining basin of the Triano mountains. The route connects the municipalities of Artzentales and Muskiz, passing through the municipalities of Sopuerta, Galdames and Abanto-Zierbena. Along the way, visitors can identify interesting vestiges of the mining past, in the form of ironworks, the remains of mining settlements, loading bays and calcining furnaces.
Of particular interest are the elements preserved around the old Triano mining railway, which once linked the La Aceña district in Galdames with the loading bays at the foot of the Sestao estuary. Inaugurated in 1876, this infrastructure provided service for practically a whole century. During this time, it functioned as the great artery through which the main mines of the basin loaded the ore to the loading points in the estuary.
The experience allows walkers to pass through old tunnels, such as the Sobaco tunnel, visit stations, such as La Aceña in Galdames, and identify the remains of several ore loading bays and other structures.
The surroundings of Pobeña-Kobaron
The Montes Mineros greenway ends in the municipality of Muskiz, although it is still possible to walk a good distance further along the Itsaslur greenway. This new route links the neighbourhoods of Pobeña and Kobaron, along a path laid out on the route of an old mining railway.
The track, on the very edge of the sea, offers spectacular views of the cliffs and the Bay of Biscay and, in its surroundings, it is still possible to identify different vestiges of mining activity. Sadly, in 2008, a blow from the sea took with it most of the most iconic element of them all, the McLennan loading dock at Kobaron, after more than a century of defying the sea storms.