Túnel de Pío XII

Beneath the eighteen tracks of Chamartín station runs this passage, bored without ever stopping the trains. The engineers pushed concrete boxes more than a hundred and fifty metres long under the platforms, and the route sinks to a third level to dodge metro lines 1 and 10 and the paseo de la Castellana. Some twenty thousand vehicles pass through its lanes each day. The name does not come from the tunnel but from the avenida de Pío XII that covers it at the surface, one of the stately arteries of the city’s north. It honours Eugenio Pacelli, a Roman born in 1876 and a Vatican diplomat before becoming pontiff. Elected pope in 1939 under the name Pius XII, his reign coincided almost exactly with the Second World War and lasted until his death in 1958. His figure remains disputed over the Church’s public silence before the Holocaust. At number 46 of that avenue stands the Apostolic Nunciature, the embassy of the Holy See in Spain. The tunnel passes several metres below.