Its name comes from the plural diminutive of Braña, a place of pasture for the summer, it is said that in the Mediavilla neighborhood, Count Gatón (founder of Villagatón and participant in the repopulation campaign of these lands) had a braña so that his cattle could benefit from those pastures with abundant ferruginous water.
Remains of a mining site reveal the Romanization of the area, and from the Middle Ages there is evidence of the commercial exploitation of numerous forges.
The railway station was opened to traffic on January 18, 1868 with the start-up of the Astorga - Brañuelas section of the line that intended to link Palencia with La Coruña.
It was the last stop and limit of the Spanish railways to the Northwest, travellers and goods had to get off the train and travel the section to Torre by stagecoach, until finally in 1881 the El Lazo Tunnel was built, a famous engineering work in it’s time (it is said that in this case it was a shepherd who came up with the great idea), thus extending the railroad to Galicia.
Until 1955, the year in which the entire line was electrified, it was an obligatory transshipment stop, since here the change was made from the steam engines, coming from Castile, to the electric ones.
From Brañuelas thousands and thousands of tons of coal left for the rest of Spain, arriving, to be shipped by rail, from the mines of the valley of the Tremor river, at the beginning of the century going up the slope with carts and horses, and from the years 20 through cable car lines.
Enterprising people established their businesses, shops, inns and bars here that remained open all night, reaching up to 3,000 inhabitants. As early as the 1960s, trucks displaced rail transport and the decline began.
Currently, the town is dedicated to livestock, agriculture and resin activity, although there are traces of mining and industrial activity.
It is a district of the municipality of Villagatón in the province of León. It is located at 1,090 meters of altitude, at the top of the Manzanal port, halfway between Bierzo, Cepeda and Maragatería. Furthermore, it has access to the Madrid-A Coruña highway, which is only 6 km away, and can also be reached by train with wide availability of schedules.