Nuria mountain railway, Spain

The Cremallera de Núria is a 12.5 km long metre gauge mountain railway line on the Spanish side of the Pyrénées mountains, in the north of the Catalonia region. Along with the Monserrat line, it is the only rack railway in the Iberian peninsular. Opened in March 1931, the line connects Ribes de Freser with Queralbs and Vall de Núria (Nuria Valley). As Queralbs is the highest point in the valley reachable by road, the rack railway is–apart from the old footpath and mule track–the only way to reach the La Virgen de Nuria shrine and the ski resort at Núria.

The line has been electrically operated from the start (1.5 kV DC). The first 5.5 km uses adhesion only with the the rest operated as a rack railway, using the Abt system and with a maximum gradient of 15%. In total the line overcomes a height difference of 1,062 m (3,484 ft).

It became part of the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC) in January 1984. Three generations of rolling stock still exist on the line. The original stock consisted of passenger cars hauled by four six wheeled electric locomotives, built by SLM and BBC in 1930–31, numbered E1-E4. (One of these seems to be shown in the poster, rather longer than it actually was.)  These were supplemented by four two-car electric trains, built by SLM and BBC in 1985, and numbered A5-A8. The final generation is represented by two low-floor electric motor coaches of type Stadler GTW, built by Stadler Rail in Switzerland in 2003, and numbered A10-A11. The line also owns a diesel rack locomotive, D9, used on works trains and to push the snow plough. Cars A10 and A11 are identical to the rolling stock of the Montserrat Rack Railway. The Montserrat line is also owned by the FGC and there is some sharing of stock between the two lines, with locomotive E4 transferred to that line for use on work trains.

photo from the trenpassio blog (in Catalan Spanish)