In General
Getting Here
Map
Sights
Signals
Floobydust
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Location / Name:
La Calahorra, Spain / Municipio de Ferreira, en la provincia de Granada
What's Here:
Sergio Leone Filming Location
Estación de La Calahorra-Ferreira
Three Tracks, Grade Crossing, and Signals
Data:
GPS Coordinates: 37.25384, -3.02938
Phone A/C:
ZIP:
Access by train/transit:
5 Trains a day in both directions
Geography:
Flat in the immediate area
Services:
Rest stop on the the SB side of A-92 with hotel, restaurant, and gas station
It's roughly 5.5mi (8.8km) between the movie set site and downtown La Calahorra
See more under the Floobydust section
The Scoop:
This page was brought about by watching the movie "Once Upon A Time In The West" the other day. The movie came out on July 4th, 1969, 16 days before we landed on the moon!
Back in the 1960's, we were treated to a number of "low budget" films, nicknamed "Spaghetti Westerns". A good portion of them were from producer Sierra Leone.
So this location in southern Spain I guess was an inexpensive alternative to filming in the United States. The landscape here is very similar to what could be found in the American southwest, which for Westerns was perfect.
The screenshots below are from Once Upon A Time In The West. The sets they built were pretty elaborate considering the movie was supposed to be done "on the cheap", and they built a whole town for the end of the movie in addition to building one for Flagstone. The scene at the beginning of the movie where we first see Charles Bronson is pretty cool, with railroad ties covering the ground all over the place!
The track seen in the movie, where the steam train rode off into the sunset, has apparently been abandoned and removed, as the one website below illustrates (ideal.es).
Among the movies filmed here were:
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - 1964, featuring Clint Eastwood
• Once Upon a Time in the West - 1969, featuring Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Claudia Cardinale, Jack Elam, Keenan Wynn
• Duck you Sucker
Other films known to be shot here include:
• North West Frontier - 1959, .
La Calahorra does have train service. According to the page I visited, there are 5 roundtrips a day passing thru here.
Acknowledgements:
Denver Todd
Google Maps
Open Railway Map
Alejandro Navarro López
Wikipedia
Websites and other additional information sources of interest for the area:
https://meglioungiornodaleone.wordpress.com/la-calahorra-2/ in Italian and English
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estaci%C3%B3n_de_La_Calahorra-Ferreira#Enlaces_externos in Spanish
http://800spaghettiwesterns.blogspot.com/ in Spanish
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Spain
https://www.raileurope.com/en-us/destinations/madrid-almeria-train travel info on the route to La Calahorra/Almeria
https://www.ideal.es/granada/provincia-granada/estaciones-tren-fantasma-provincia-granada-20210411005519-ga.html in Spanish
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064116/?ref_=ttloc_ov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_coupling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_La_Calahorra
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_La_Calahorra if you're lucky enough to speak Spanish, this page has ever so much more info than the English version
https://www.castles.nl/calahorra-castle lots of good detail photos
https://www.lacalahorra.es/inicio/ homepage for La Calahorra
https://www.granadadigital.es/granada-entrevista-antonio-moral-festival-internacional-musica-danza-necesita-compromiso-instituciones-publicas/
La Calahorra is ~33 miles (~52 km) east of Granada, as the crow flies.
But it is almost double that by road: 51 miles/ 82km via A-92 and GR-6103/GR-820 (exit 312 off of A-92).
Granada is 241 miles (389km) south of Madrid via E-5 and E-902 (interchange 292 at Bailen).
I will leave it to your GPS to get you here, if you decide to come.
Estación de La Calahorra-FerreiraGPS Coordinates: 37.25290, -3.02905
18512 La Calahorra, Granada, Spain
The
Avenir Démodé / Wikipedia/ES
3APR21, josemanuelgr352 / Flickr
The Movie Set SiteGPS Coordinates: 37.25463, -3.02864
The
Scenes from some of the movies filmed here:
Castell de CalahorraGPS Coordinates: 37.18344, -3.06549
18512 La Calahorra, Granada, Spain
+34-958677098
The castle is privately owned :-)
Grade CrossingGPS Coordinates: 37.25382, -3.03056 (at the grade crossing)
If anyone has been here and has better pictures, I would greatly appreciate it if you would consider sending them my way :-)
Siding SignalsGPS Coordinates: 37.25382, -3.03056 (at the grade crossing)
About La Calahorra
Area Hotels and Bars
Downtown
Looks like "back home", huh? :-)
On the way out of/into the city
at the A-92 rest stopOther Interesting Things - Maybe, Maybe Not
Found while scooting around town via Google Streetview....
Electrical support poles adjacent to the bar seen above
Bus stop
Disclaimers:
New format 10/26/23: Please check out my disclaimer page for my standard dribble and contact info here
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