The Arditurri Green Route passes through 6 tunnels along its journey. In order to transfer the material extracted from the Arditurri mine to the bay of Pasaia, it was essential to build this type of tunnel (due to the orography of Oiartzun) to ensure a straighter railway route at the time.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the well-known Basque family Chavarri acquired the mines looking for the best way to optimise their exploitation. To do so, they deployed a railway exclusively for mining transport, officially opening in 1901. The train tracks went down to the port, where they had a loading dock known as a "cantilever", which allowed direct unloading from the mining wagons to the ship's cellar. The mines were finally closed in the mid-1980s, although the trains had stopped service since 1965.
Out of all the trains or locomotives that were used over the years, the locomotive known as the Santa Bárbara has been preserved. This locomotive was manufactured in 1907 by the German firm Arnold Jung for Compañía de las Minas de Hierro de Arditurri and is currently housed in the Asturias Railway Museum in Gijón.
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