The Train Station Hotel - advanced news lesson.pdf

Published by Macmillan Education Ltd. © Macmillan Education Limited, 2021.
Home >> Adults >> General English >> NEWS LESSONS
2
Warmer
a. What do you know about railway stations? Choose the best answers.
1. The world’s highest railway station is in China / the USA.
2. The world’s busiest railway station is in Japan / India.
3. The oldest railway station in the world is in France / the UK.
4. The railway station with the most platforms (44) is in New York City / Beijing.
5. The station with the longest name (58 letters) is in Scotland / Wales.
b. Discuss briefly in groups:
Do you often travel by rail?
Are there any famous railway stations or rail routes in your country or region?
Key Words
a. Complete the sentences using these key words from the text.
abject derailment discreet façade gauge (noun)
hostilities ill-fated incompetence intrigue lucrative
snowball (verb) tungsten vainglorious viable
1. A / An venture is an activity that is likely to end in failure
or death.
2. ambition is ambition that is excessively proud or boastful.
3. If something ends in failure, it fails completely and with
serious consequences.
4. is a lack of skill or ability to do something correctly or well.
5. is a secret plan to harm or cheat someone or the process of
making such a plan.
6. is a very hard metal used in the manufacture of steel.
7. If an activity is , it makes a lot of money.
8. A / An activity or location is unlikely to attract attention.
Europe’s unluckiest train station gets new lease of life as hotel
Level 3: Advanced
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1

Level 3: Advanced
9. If things , they develop very quickly and become very big
or serious.
10. Fighting between enemies in a war is known as .
11. The distance between the two metal rails of a railway is called the
.
12. If something is , it is profitable or worth doing.
13. A / An is a situation when a train comes off the rails.
14. A / An is the front of a building, especially one that is
large or impressive.
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Once-grand Canfranc was known as
the Titanic of the mountains, but fell
into disrepair thanks to fire, derailment
and war
Stephen Burgen
It earned the nickname ‘Titanic of the
mountains’, but now the monumental and
ill-fated train station at Canfranc is to get
a new life as a five-star hotel, 51 years
after the international rail link across the
Pyrenees closed.
The story of Canfranc, a village more than
1,000 metres (3,280ft) above sea level on the
Franco-Spanish frontier, is one of vainglorious
ambition and abject failure, of incompetence
and corruption, of intrigue, smuggling and a
century-long run of bad luck.
Spain wanted to show that it was capable of
building something on the scale of Europe’s
great ‘railway cathedrals’, says railway writer
Alfonso Marco. ‘By the time it was built it
already belonged, conceptually and technically,
in the 19th
century,’ he told the Guardian. The
problem was that the station was conceived in
1853 but not completed until 1928.
Marco, who is the third generation of
railwaymen in his family, was born in Canfranc
station, where his father worked and had
his lodgings. At the line’s opening ceremony
Spain’s King Alfonso XIII grandly said: ‘The
Pyrenees no longer exist.’ However, the
mountains were only one of the obstacles to
Canfranc’s success.
There are many myths and legends
surrounding the station, such as that it changed
the course of the Second World War. It didn’t,
but it certainly played a role. After the Nazis
occupied France, Spain’s Franco regime used
Canfranc to exchange tungsten, vital in tank
production, for Nazi gold, including one single
shipment of 86 tons.
Franco wanted to maintain good relations with
Britain and the US but wasn’t going to turn
down the opportunity of lucrative trade with
Nazi Germany. ‘As an international crossing
point, Canfranc was more discreet and far less
visible than others,’ Marco says. The station
was used by spies on all sides, and it is said
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that numerous Jews also escaped persecution
in Vichy France via Canfranc.
‘There’s a grain of truth in all these stories but
they have snowballed into something totally
exaggerated,’ says Marco. ‘For example, it’s
true that Jews used it as a crossing point, but
not on a massive scale.
‘And while the Germans operated the customs
post on the French side during the Second
World War, they never occupied Canfranc.
These stories of the swastika flying from the
station’s flagpole are false.’
Marco rejects the Titanic nickname, although
he accepts that, like the ship, Canfranc can
be seen as a metaphor for failed ambition and
concedes that it’s had more than its fair share
of bad luck.
In fact, it’s had little else. The station had
only just opened when the 1929 financial
crash hit. Two years later, it was extensively
damaged in a fire. Then, in 1936, the Spanish
Civil War began, and the moment that ended,
the Second World War broke out. By the
time hostilities were finally over, the Franco
dictatorship was isolated and international rail
traffic didn’t pick up again until the 1950s.
However, the track on the French side was
a different gauge from the Spanish one, so
passengers and luggage had to be offloaded
from one train to another, adding to the already
long journey time. The line was never viable.
In 1970, a derailment damaged a bridge,
providing an excuse to abandon the station
which, with its 365 windows and 200-metre-
long platform, was left to decay and become
what Marco describes as ‘an involuntary
railway mausoleum of enormous sentimental
value … part of a history that can’t be ignored
and that deserves to be known and valued’.
Today, the station operates only a modest
Spanish domestic service.
The 104-room hotel is being designed by
architects Joaquín Magrazó and Fernando
Used in conjunction with the regional
government of Aragón and the Barceló
hotel chain. The budgeted cost is €27m, of
which the Aragón government will contribute
€12m to repair the tracks and develop the
surrounding area.
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Level 3: Advanced
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Level 3: Advanced
The facade will be preserved but a new station
is being built behind the existing one and will
be entered via the hotel vestibule. The complex
will include a 200-seat conference centre, a
railway museum, shops, and a pilgrim refuge,
as Canfranc is on one of the routes to Santiago
de Compostela.
It is hoped that the hotel will revive the village
when work is completed at the end of next year,
but Marco believes it will be some time before
the link to Pau in France is running again.
In 2020, France and Spain agreed to begin
to work on reopening the tunnel that links the
two countries, and with EU support, it is hoped
that the Canfranc line and station will be fully
operational by 2026. In the meantime, the
station has become a place of pilgrimage for
people interested in industrial heritage, says
Marco, who recommends taking the twice-daily
train from Zaragoza to Canfranc as it makes
its way through the spectacular scenery of
the Pyrenees.
© Guardian News and Media 2021
First published in The Guardian, 19/07/2021
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4
3
Comprehension check
a. Answer the questions using information from the article.
1. When did the international rail link through Canfranc station close?
2. According to Alfonso Marco, what was the problem with Canfranc station when it was completed
in 1928?
3. What role did Canfranc station play in World War II??
4. Why did spies and people fleeing persecution use Canfranc station?
5. What happened one year after the station first opened?
6. What happened immediately after the Spanish Civil War ended?
7. What was the gauge problem between the French and Spanish railways?
8. What led to the abandonment of the station in 1970?
9. Which train service uses the station today?
10. When might the line to France be fully operational again?
Key language
a. Complete the table.
Noun Adjective
1. sentiment
2. operation
3. industry
4. spectacle
5. monument
6. ambitious
7. corrupt
8. incompetent
Level 3: Advanced
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6
Level: Advanced
5
Discussion
a. Discuss these statements.
• ‘Railways are much better for the planet than roads.’
• ‘No one wants to travel by train these days. It’s too expensive.’
• ‘After COVID-19, spending millions on tourist facilities is a waste of money.’
In your own words
a. Some people argue that Canfranc station was a classic example of a ‘white elephant’ (an
expensive project that ended in failure). Use the internet to find information about other
famous examples of ‘white elephants’. Choose at least two of these projects and include
information about:
• their cost
• their purpose
• their location
• why they failed
Write a short report detailing your findings.
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Level 3: Advanced – Teacher’s notes
connected to the word ‘intriguing‘, but the latter has
the somewhat different meaning of ‘very interesting’,
especially because of being strange or mysterious.
The chemical symbol for tungsten is W, which
derives from its old name ‘wolfram’.
Key:
1. ill-fated
2. Vainglorious
3. abject
4. Incompetence
5. Intrigue
6. Tungsten
7. lucrative
8. discreet
9. snowball (verb)
10. hostilities
11. gauge (noun)
12. viable
13. derailment
14. façade
3. Comprehension check
a. The answers given are only suggested answers
and students may correctly answer the questions
in different ways, e.g., in item 1 they may say, ‘in
1970’ or similar.
Key:
1. 51 years ago
2.
It belonged conceptually and technically in the
19th
century.
3.
It was used as a place where valuable cargoes
or materials were exchanged.
4.
Canfranc was more discreet and less visible
than other crossing points.
5. Financial markets crashed.
6. The Second World War began.
7.
The gauge on the Spanish side was different
from the one on the French side. French trains
could not run on the Spanish tracks.
8. A derailment damaged a bridge.
9. A twice-daily train runs from Zaragoza.
10. By 2026, the station should be fully operational.
4. Key language
a. Students could be asked to do this exercise
individually and then compare their answers in pairs.
Ask students to refer back to the text to see the
words in context.
1. Warmer
a. The purpose of this activity is to introduce the topic
of railway stations. The highest railway station is in
China (in the autonomous region of Tibet), at 5,068
metres. The previous highest was at Galera, in Peru,
at 4,781 metres. 3.5 million people use Shinjuku
station in Tokyo each day, making it the busiest in
the world. The oldest existing station was built in
Liverpool, England, in 1930. Grand Central station in
New York has the most platforms (44), while Nagoya
station in Japan is the largest in terms of area, at
446,000 square metres. The Welsh railway station is
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio
gogogoch which means ‘The church of St Mary
in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid
whirlpool by St Tysilio’s of the red cave’.
Key:
1. China
2. Japan
3. the UK
4. New York City
5. Wales
b. Students discuss questions in groups.
2. Key words
a. Ask students to do the exercise individually and
then compare their answers in pairs or small
groups. Point out that ‘abject failure’ is a widely used
collocation to describe a complete failure. The word
‘intrigue’ used here to mean ‘plotting in secret’ is
Article summary: The article describes a
plan to revive the enormous railway station on
the border between Spain and France.
Time: 45 – 60 minutes
Skills: Reading, Speaking, Writing
Language focus: Vocabulary
Materials needed: One copy of the
worksheet per student

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Home Adults General English NEWS LESSONS
Level 3: Advanced – Teacher’s notes
Key:
1. sentimental
2. operational
3. industrial
4. spectacular
5. monumental
6. ambition
7. corruption
8. incompetence
5. Discussion
a. Allow students time to note down their ideas about
each statement and encourage them to say why they
agree or disagree with each one.
6. In your own words
a. Ask students to open an internet search engine
and enter ‘famous white elephants’. They should
then find and note down key information about two
or three examples of projects that were a massive
waste of money and write a short report focusing on
the guidelines shown.
The task could also be done as a homework task
and students could then present their reports to
the class.

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The Train Station Hotel - advanced news lesson.pdf