Electrification

The first line that was electrified was the section from Gérgal to Santa Fe, on the Linares-Almería line, in 1911, at 1.5 kVcc and since then more lines have been electrified, with the idea of, in the not too distant future, all of them will have this type of traction.

Nationalization

Shortly after the end of the civil war, in January 1941 the Law on Bases of Railway and Road Transport Planning was approved, which led to the nationalization of all railway companies that had gauges of 1,668 meters, which are known as broad gauge railways, which were grouped together in a state company: the National Network of Spanish Railways (RENFE) was born.[4] Under its management they remained. 12,401 km of track, many of them damaged by the recent war. The exception was the Guadarrama Electric Railway, a narrow gauge railway that became part of RENFE after its rescue by the State. Thus, the first actions of the new company focus on the unification of signals and regulations of the old railway companies, apart from the recovery of the damaged or destroyed network. For its part, Railway Exploitation by the State (EFE) saw its scope of action limited to narrow gauge lines. The metric gauge railways still maintained their privatizations, although with the arrival of the 1960s numerous railway companies went bankrupt and disappeared, their lines having to be managed by EFE. For example, on August 1, 1951, the Mallorca Railways were intervened by the state and in 1959 they were under complete management of EFE. Until the beginning of the 1970s, a torrent of new lines continued to flow into state management, which forced EFE to be restructured and Ferrocarriles Españoles de Vía Estrecha (FEVE) to be created in 1965.[5]​ By that time, practically all of the narrow gauge had been nationalized.

Under the lines previously established by the World Bank, in 1964 the Ten-Year Modernization Plan (1964-1973) was approved, which has the utopian objective of making the railway economically profitable. With the entry of foreign capital, the import of oil and a progressive replacement of steam traction were made possible, although this would still continue to provide service on numerous secondary lines. The modernization of the vehicle fleet and the improvement of the railway network led to the entry into service of the Talgo III#Talgo_III "Talgo (type of train)") or the importation in 1967 of the Series 279 locomotives, which in Europe constituted the first Japanese electric locomotives to be imported.[6] In that same year in Madrid, the new Chamartín Station and the Laughter Tunnel that connects this station with the Atocha, finishing two projects that had been started three decades earlier. With the inauguration of Chamartín, it absorbed a good part of the capital's railway traffic, which led to the importance of the North Station being considerably reduced and the closure of the Delicias Station on July 1, 1969. Coinciding with the inauguration of Chamartín, work began in Barcelona on the construction of the Sants Station, with the intention of it centralizing the traffic of the city of Barcelona.

Crisis and lock

As a result of the oil crisis of 1973, the Spanish economy began to slow down and enter a deep crisis. This occurs coinciding with the last years of the Franco Dictatorship, whose political structure is increasingly weakened. Despite the crisis, RENFE continues with its reform programs: in the middle of the decade it began to experiment with high speed, 190 km/h, with the aim of implementing it on the Madrid-Barcelona line. The year 1975 would mark a before and after in the history of the railway in Spain, since during this year the official end of steam traction occurred. On June 23, one of the last RENFE steam locomotives, a "Mikado" registration 141-F-2348, was put out of service at the Vicálvaro classification station (Madrid).[7]​.

On November 20, 1975, Francisco Franco died and with it began the beginning of the end of Franco's regime. For RENFE it will mean the beginning of a new era, in the search to offer efficient and modern services to the public. Before the end of the 1970s, with a view to increasing safety, in 1978 the ASFA safety system was implemented, a reproduction of the signals in the cabin that automatically prevents passing a red signal. Another consequence of the fuel crisis (which suffered a rebound in 1979 with the second oil crisis) was to give a new impetus to the electrification of the main railway lines: Already in 1973 the Valencia-Tarragona railway had been electrified, which was followed in 1976 by the Seville-Córdoba, Miranda de Ebro-Zaragoza or Espeluy-Jaén routes. Three years later, the Córdoba-Málaga, Alcázar de San Juan-Chinchilla, Chinchilla-Játiva lines, and the Guadalajara-Torralba section were electrified. In 1981 the electrification of the entire Madrid-Barcelona Line was completed, where the installation of the double track was also being undertaken.

Despite the achievement of large railway works, such as the "Directo Madrid-Burgos" or the colossal Madrid-Chamartín station, the Spanish railway, in line with the global trend, was going through a serious crisis that, with the political changes that were taking place, caused the first attempts to rationalize an underused and inefficient network. In 1979, the Barcelona Sants Station was inaugurated, which concentrated the main railway traffic in the city after the closure in 1972 of the old North Station "Estación del Norte (Barcelona)"). However, railway deficits increasingly posed a greater problem for both RENFE and the state.

In 1979, the first Program Contract was signed, an agreement by which the State provided the necessary economic resources for exploitation and investments while RENFE committed to improving the quality of its services and developing a plan that would allow its recovery. This contract would evolve into the current OSP.

In the 1980s the question of the economic profitability of the network was raised. Based on the fact that 68% of rail traffic was carried out on 5,000 of the 13,500 km of track in the network, a plan was developed, within the contract program agreed with the government, to close those lines that were not economically profitable, largely forgetting the social profitability of the railway. Specifically, the closure of those lines whose income covered less than 23% of the costs was considered, with exceptions such as those saved by international perspectives or regional rescues.[8]​ In January 1985, when Enrique Barón was Minister of Public Works, 914 km of railway were closed, affecting 12 lines and 132 stations, while another 933 km were maintained for exclusive freight service. Some of the affected lines were the Santander-Mediterráneo, Valladolid-Ariza, Plasencia-Astorga, Almendricos-Guadix, La Fuente de San Esteban-Barca de Alba, Jaén-Campo Real, Valencia-Liria, Calatayud-Valencia, etc.[9]​[10][11]​ For their part, the autonomous communities came to the rescue of another 600 km to avoid their closure.[12]​ In some cases the reports relating to the losses of these lines contained manipulated or false data, such as adding electrification workers to lines that did not have it, and thus justifying their closure.[10]​.

With the new political system, the FEVE company, which at the beginning of the 1980s was still suffering a serious crisis, gave up ownership of several of its lines to some regions. The first was Catalonia, where the Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC) entity was established in 1979. In the Basque Country, Euskotren was created in 1982, followed by Ferrocarriles de la Generalidad Valenciana (FGV) in 1986 and the Servicios Ferroviarios de Mallorca (SFM) in 1994, organizations that received the management of narrow gauge, tram or suburban railways as some autonomous communities received powers in this matter. For its part, during that decade FEVE undertook a profound renovation of material and infrastructure, focusing its services on commuter trains and local trains. Starting in 1983, a tourist train began operating, the so-called Transcantábrico, which would end up becoming a star service.

The emergence of the AVE

In April 1992, the first high-speed line in Spain, the Madrid-Seville line, was inaugurated. This infrastructure is integrated into the works to promote the development of southern Spain and the Universal Exposition of Seville in 1992. The name of this new infrastructure, which is built with international European gauge, is AVE, Spanish High Speed. The AVE can reach 300 km/h. Since then, projects have been inaugurated such as the Madrid-Barcelona high speed rail in 2008, known as the "jewel in the crown", or the AVE to Levante and Galicia, which make use of gauge changes that link two of the three Spains, separated by width.

Network liberalization

In the last two centuries, European rail transport evolved within national borders: each State created its own railway system, based on local considerations, and national industries, together with railway companies, adopted their own technical and operational standards. All of this gave rise to a structural fragmentation of the European railway system, which remains, today, one of the biggest obstacles to the creation of a single European railway area. This fragmentation causes serious problems in terms of efficiency, flexibility and reliability, especially for freight transport, and high operating costs, which prevents the railway from being a credible competitor against other modes of transport and discourages private investment by new companies in the railway market.[13]​.

With the separation of RENFE into Renfe Operadora and ADIF in 2005, liberalization was given the starting signal, followed later by the integration of FEVE and the segregations of the regional operators. The liberalization process occurred in parts:[14]​.

• - 2005: transportation of goods.

• - 2006: international passenger transport.

• - 2013: tourist trips.

• - 2021: high-speed transport

• 2021: first package, south and east.

• 2030 (estimated)[note 1]​: second package, north and west.

• - 2023[note 2]​: OSP commuter and medium-distance transport.

Spanish Railways Law

On August 18, 1854, the Council of Ministers decreed the creation of a committee of experts to study a Railway Law.

This first law, approved on June 3, 1855, during the reign of Elizabeth II, was called General Law of Iron Roads. It consists of IX chapters with 49 articles that regulate such important aspects and standards as:

Summary of the original text.

The railway was the great opportunity lost by the Spanish steel industry. The importance of having tariff-free iron established by the Law of 1855 made companies source their supplies abroad. Although the Spanish steel industry at that time was probably not in a position to have been able to meet this challenge.

Electrification

The first line that was electrified was the section from Gérgal to Santa Fe, on the Linares-Almería line, in 1911, at 1.5 kVcc and since then more lines have been electrified, with the idea of, in the not too distant future, all of them will have this type of traction.

Nationalization

Shortly after the end of the civil war, in January 1941 the Law on Bases of Railway and Road Transport Planning was approved, which led to the nationalization of all railway companies that had gauges of 1,668 meters, which are known as broad gauge railways, which were grouped together in a state company: the National Network of Spanish Railways (RENFE) was born.[4] Under its management they remained. 12,401 km of track, many of them damaged by the recent war. The exception was the Guadarrama Electric Railway, a narrow gauge railway that became part of RENFE after its rescue by the State. Thus, the first actions of the new company focus on the unification of signals and regulations of the old railway companies, apart from the recovery of the damaged or destroyed network. For its part, Railway Exploitation by the State (EFE) saw its scope of action limited to narrow gauge lines. The metric gauge railways still maintained their privatizations, although with the arrival of the 1960s numerous railway companies went bankrupt and disappeared, their lines having to be managed by EFE. For example, on August 1, 1951, the Mallorca Railways were intervened by the state and in 1959 they were under complete management of EFE. Until the beginning of the 1970s, a torrent of new lines continued to flow into state management, which forced EFE to be restructured and Ferrocarriles Españoles de Vía Estrecha (FEVE) to be created in 1965.[5]​ By that time, practically all of the narrow gauge had been nationalized.

Under the lines previously established by the World Bank, in 1964 the Ten-Year Modernization Plan (1964-1973) was approved, which has the utopian objective of making the railway economically profitable. With the entry of foreign capital, the import of oil and a progressive replacement of steam traction were made possible, although this would still continue to provide service on numerous secondary lines. The modernization of the vehicle fleet and the improvement of the railway network led to the entry into service of the Talgo III#Talgo_III "Talgo (type of train)") or the importation in 1967 of the Series 279 locomotives, which in Europe constituted the first Japanese electric locomotives to be imported.[6] In that same year in Madrid, the new Chamartín Station and the Laughter Tunnel that connects this station with the Atocha, finishing two projects that had been started three decades earlier. With the inauguration of Chamartín, it absorbed a good part of the capital's railway traffic, which led to the importance of the North Station being considerably reduced and the closure of the Delicias Station on July 1, 1969. Coinciding with the inauguration of Chamartín, work began in Barcelona on the construction of the Sants Station, with the intention of it centralizing the traffic of the city of Barcelona.

Crisis and lock

As a result of the oil crisis of 1973, the Spanish economy began to slow down and enter a deep crisis. This occurs coinciding with the last years of the Franco Dictatorship, whose political structure is increasingly weakened. Despite the crisis, RENFE continues with its reform programs: in the middle of the decade it began to experiment with high speed, 190 km/h, with the aim of implementing it on the Madrid-Barcelona line. The year 1975 would mark a before and after in the history of the railway in Spain, since during this year the official end of steam traction occurred. On June 23, one of the last RENFE steam locomotives, a "Mikado" registration 141-F-2348, was put out of service at the Vicálvaro classification station (Madrid).[7]​.

On November 20, 1975, Francisco Franco died and with it began the beginning of the end of Franco's regime. For RENFE it will mean the beginning of a new era, in the search to offer efficient and modern services to the public. Before the end of the 1970s, with a view to increasing safety, in 1978 the ASFA safety system was implemented, a reproduction of the signals in the cabin that automatically prevents passing a red signal. Another consequence of the fuel crisis (which suffered a rebound in 1979 with the second oil crisis) was to give a new impetus to the electrification of the main railway lines: Already in 1973 the Valencia-Tarragona railway had been electrified, which was followed in 1976 by the Seville-Córdoba, Miranda de Ebro-Zaragoza or Espeluy-Jaén routes. Three years later, the Córdoba-Málaga, Alcázar de San Juan-Chinchilla, Chinchilla-Játiva lines, and the Guadalajara-Torralba section were electrified. In 1981 the electrification of the entire Madrid-Barcelona Line was completed, where the installation of the double track was also being undertaken.

Despite the achievement of large railway works, such as the "Directo Madrid-Burgos" or the colossal Madrid-Chamartín station, the Spanish railway, in line with the global trend, was going through a serious crisis that, with the political changes that were taking place, caused the first attempts to rationalize an underused and inefficient network. In 1979, the Barcelona Sants Station was inaugurated, which concentrated the main railway traffic in the city after the closure in 1972 of the old North Station "Estación del Norte (Barcelona)"). However, railway deficits increasingly posed a greater problem for both RENFE and the state.

In 1979, the first Program Contract was signed, an agreement by which the State provided the necessary economic resources for exploitation and investments while RENFE committed to improving the quality of its services and developing a plan that would allow its recovery. This contract would evolve into the current OSP.

In the 1980s the question of the economic profitability of the network was raised. Based on the fact that 68% of rail traffic was carried out on 5,000 of the 13,500 km of track in the network, a plan was developed, within the contract program agreed with the government, to close those lines that were not economically profitable, largely forgetting the social profitability of the railway. Specifically, the closure of those lines whose income covered less than 23% of the costs was considered, with exceptions such as those saved by international perspectives or regional rescues.[8]​ In January 1985, when Enrique Barón was Minister of Public Works, 914 km of railway were closed, affecting 12 lines and 132 stations, while another 933 km were maintained for exclusive freight service. Some of the affected lines were the Santander-Mediterráneo, Valladolid-Ariza, Plasencia-Astorga, Almendricos-Guadix, La Fuente de San Esteban-Barca de Alba, Jaén-Campo Real, Valencia-Liria, Calatayud-Valencia, etc.[9]​[10][11]​ For their part, the autonomous communities came to the rescue of another 600 km to avoid their closure.[12]​ In some cases the reports relating to the losses of these lines contained manipulated or false data, such as adding electrification workers to lines that did not have it, and thus justifying their closure.[10]​.

With the new political system, the FEVE company, which at the beginning of the 1980s was still suffering a serious crisis, gave up ownership of several of its lines to some regions. The first was Catalonia, where the Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC) entity was established in 1979. In the Basque Country, Euskotren was created in 1982, followed by Ferrocarriles de la Generalidad Valenciana (FGV) in 1986 and the Servicios Ferroviarios de Mallorca (SFM) in 1994, organizations that received the management of narrow gauge, tram or suburban railways as some autonomous communities received powers in this matter. For its part, during that decade FEVE undertook a profound renovation of material and infrastructure, focusing its services on commuter trains and local trains. Starting in 1983, a tourist train began operating, the so-called Transcantábrico, which would end up becoming a star service.

The emergence of the AVE

In April 1992, the first high-speed line in Spain, the Madrid-Seville line, was inaugurated. This infrastructure is integrated into the works to promote the development of southern Spain and the Universal Exposition of Seville in 1992. The name of this new infrastructure, which is built with international European gauge, is AVE, Spanish High Speed. The AVE can reach 300 km/h. Since then, projects have been inaugurated such as the Madrid-Barcelona high speed rail in 2008, known as the "jewel in the crown", or the AVE to Levante and Galicia, which make use of gauge changes that link two of the three Spains, separated by width.

Network liberalization

In the last two centuries, European rail transport evolved within national borders: each State created its own railway system, based on local considerations, and national industries, together with railway companies, adopted their own technical and operational standards. All of this gave rise to a structural fragmentation of the European railway system, which remains, today, one of the biggest obstacles to the creation of a single European railway area. This fragmentation causes serious problems in terms of efficiency, flexibility and reliability, especially for freight transport, and high operating costs, which prevents the railway from being a credible competitor against other modes of transport and discourages private investment by new companies in the railway market.[13]​.

With the separation of RENFE into Renfe Operadora and ADIF in 2005, liberalization was given the starting signal, followed later by the integration of FEVE and the segregations of the regional operators. The liberalization process occurred in parts:[14]​.

• - 2005: transportation of goods.

• - 2006: international passenger transport.

• - 2013: tourist trips.

• - 2021: high-speed transport

• 2021: first package, south and east.

• 2030 (estimated)[note 1]​: second package, north and west.

• - 2023[note 2]​: OSP commuter and medium-distance transport.