Asturian coal mining was responsible for creating one of the densest railway networks in Spain. From the broad-gauge Ferrocarril del Norte, linking Asturias and its ports with the Spanish interior, to the regional metre-gauge lines (for both mining and passengers) and the narrow mining tramways connecting pitheads to loading docks, few valleys in the heart of Asturias’ mining basins escaped the hiss of steam locomotives and the squeal of ore wagons crossing the green pastures.

The Turón valley was no exception to the mining boom of the late 19th century. In 1890, a Basque business group led by Víctor Chavarri —one of the mining and railway magnates of the turn of the century— set its sights on this secluded valley and transformed it completely. Multiple shafts were sunk, and to move the coal to the Lena valley —the main transport corridor in the heart of Asturias— a curious railway network was built. The first section, from Reicastro to La Cuadriella, where the valley’s main coal-washing plant stood, used Iberian-gauge (1.66 m) track. From La Cuadriella up towards the foot of the La Colladiella pass, tiny 60 cm-gauge trains twisted between the river, steep hillsides, and mining pits, moving millions of tonnes of that black rock that burns: coal.

The fate of these lines was sealed by the mining crisis that hit Asturias in the late 20th century. From the 1980s onwards, mine closures came one after another, followed by the shutdown of the railways that carried their output. None of the Turón valley’s branches survived to the end of the millennium: the broad-gauge line closed in 1991, and the narrow-gauge route followed in 1994.