History
The first railway line in Iberia was built in 1848 between Barcelona and Mataró In 1852 the first narrow gauge line was built; in 1863 a line reached the Portuguese border. By 1864 the Madrid-Irun line had been opened, and the French border reached.
In 1911 the first line to be electrified was the Gergal-Santa Fe line.
In 1941 RENFE was created.
The last steam locomotive was withdrawn in 1975, in 1986 the maximum speed on the railways was raised to 160 km/h, and in 1992 the Madrid-Seville high speed line opened, beginning the process of building a nationwide high speed network.
The current plans of the Spanish government plans to link all the provincial capitals with high speed rail, with a total estimated length of over 9000 km of high-speed railways for 2020.
Read more about this topic: Rail Transport In Spain
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)