2 - "Interlocking Table" from Barcelona’s Francia Station

Located beside the entrance to the installations of the old Steam Depot is this floor’s most valuable element: the “Interlocking Table” from Barcelona’s Francia Station. It stands out due to its size and technical complexity. It functioned from 1929, the year of Barcelona’s Universal Expo, until 1989. It is housed in a classic railway bridge-building, above the fan of sidings leading into the station, like the ones that were built all over Europe. This building, which disappeared as part of the Barcelona Olympics project, regulated all the incoming and outgoing railway traffic. The Table was built in 1924 featuring innovative electromagnetic technology that streamlined and vastly improved traffic and safety.

In large stations, the progressive rise in traffic had made it necessary to increase the number of tracks, signals or intersections. The problem was not the large number per se but the fact that all the operations had to be perfectly coordinated, so as to avoid accidents. To that end, an “interlocking” system was designed featuring a concentration of levers in certain positions, which used mechanical means to control manoeuvrability, making it impossible to move a lever if it would compromise safety.

The “Table” consists of two rows of 121 levers, which enabled the station master and the traffic factor to carry out more than 500 possible itineraries. The open panel at the bottom enables you to appreciate the mechanism’s complexity. The top panel features the different indicator lights of the 12 main tracks and those of the Barceloneta Station (which no longer exists), located on the grounds of the Iberian Peninsula’s first railway line, from Barcelona to Mataró. This technology has now been replaced by a new electronic interlocking system, based on microprocessors, which is safer than all previous systems.

To the left of this valuable element you fill find the entrance to the Museum’s outdoor area.