Puente de los Franceses, Railway bridge in Moncloa-Aravaca district, Madrid, Spain.
The Puente de los Franceses is a railway bridge crossing the Manzanares River with five semicircular brick arches faced in granite blocks. The structure remains functional and carries trains connecting to the Príncipe Pío station in Madrid.
French engineers designed and built this railway viaduct between 1860 and 1862 for the Madrid-Irun line of the Northern Spain Railway Company. The structure was part of Spain's major railroad modernization during the nineteenth century.
The bridge held strategic importance during the Spanish Civil War and inspired a popular Republican song about militias defending it. Today, locals still recognize it as a landmark tied to this pivotal moment in Madrid's past.
The bridge is visible and accessible from street level or along the riverbank, though access to the railway tracks themselves is not permitted. The best vantage point is the adjacent riverbank, from which all structural details are clearly visible.
Three of the bridge's four pillars rise directly from the river bed, showing nineteenth-century methods for spanning water barriers. This construction approach was a technical achievement of its era and remains studied by engineers.
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