Pilar Careaga Basabe studied quantity surveyor and later continued at the Higher School of Industrial Engineers in Madrid (1922-1923). He finished his career in six years, the term foreseen in the study plan. He earned outstanding grades in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Railways. He had also studied languages ​​in Switzerland (German, English and French). In the last year of her studies at the Faculty she followed the subject of Railways and did an internship as a train driver, becoming the first woman to drive a train in Spain. His final degree project dealt with "History of the ETSI of Industrial Engineers of Madrid from 1901 to 1972". She was 20 years old.

First mayor of Bilbao, first woman industrial engineer in Spain.

In 1929 she was the first Spanish woman to graduate in industrial engineering from the Madrid School of Industrial Engineering, as well as the first woman to drive a railway. For the first time, a woman operated a train machine. Pilar Careaga y Basabé carried out their industrial engineering practices on the railroad. And he did not hesitate to put on his work overalls (uniform) and drive a '4,700' of the Norte company (Renfe was founded in 1941, after the Civil War ended and unifying the different lines that served in Spain: North, MZA, West between the most important). From the North Station of Madrid to the station of the same name in Bilbao. Quite a feat for the time.
In addition, she developed a whole political career that led her, on 07/07/1969, to become mayor of Bilbao, being the first woman to hold a mayor's office during the Franco dictatorship. She resigned as mayor on 07/07/1975 and left active politics.