This news article was originally written in Spanish. It has been automatically translated for your convenience. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace a human translator. The original article in Spanish can be viewed at Salida nocturna en el primer metro, de 1924, testigo de la inauguración del suburbano en Barcelona

The train M1-M6-M8 of the Big Metre makes possible, 87 years afterwards, a thrilling subterranean walk by the history of the City Condal

Nocturnal exit in the first metre, of 1924, witness of the inauguration of the suburban in Barcelona

Editorial Interempresas16/04/2012

Transports Metropolitans of Barcelona (TMB) and the Foundation TMB revived in the morning of the past 12 April the first metre of Barcelona, the historical train M1-M6-M8 in a moving distance by the Line 1 between the stations of Pau and Holy Family, in an included activity inside the project TMB Culture.

Trains like this —that along the years happened to form the series 300— are those that inaugurated, on 30 December 1924, the line of the Big Metropolitan of Barcelona between Lesseps and Catalonia, the first of the City Condal and precursor of the current Line 3. They were in operation during more than 60 years, until finals of 1987, when they were withdrawn of the service.

Recreation of the exit of the first metre of Barcelona.

The ten original trains of the Big Metre —as it called him commonly—, of two trucks each one, were built by the Company Euskalduna of Construction and Repair of Fuselages, SA, of Bilbao, between 1920 and 1923, for a width of road of 1.435 millimetres. They measured 2,52 metres of width, 3,60 m of high and 14,60 m of length.

In 1949, to celebrate the 25º anniversary of the metre of Barcelona, premièred the first lighted up fluorescent in the interior of the trains. After diverse modifications, in 1956, as a result of the fusion with the Tranversal, substituted the black colours and grana of the Big Metre by the colours unified blue and cream. In the interior, installed a series of individual seats and the rhomboidal logo that substituted the round shield original of the Big Metre.

The progressive arrival of 18 new trains of the series 3000, between 1986 and 1987, determined the withdrawal of the series 300 and, to finals of December of 1987, no longer remained any of them circulating in the Line 3. The official farewell was on 12 March 1988 in an act to the that assisted the president of TMB of that épòca, Mercè Room, and the mayor of Barcelona of then, Pasqual Maragall.

To celebrate the 75 years of the metre of Barcelona, in February of 1999, TMB rescued three trucks of this series: the M1, M6 and M8 according to the original numbering. They disassembled , they cleaned and they repaired and also they restored the interiors, going back to paint with the original colours, the same that lucían in 1924. At present they conserve in the Rail Triangle and have turned into integral very valuable of the historical payment of the Foundation TMB.