Page 109 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

South Madrid and High Speed. An example of symbiosis

6. Railway in the 20th century.

6.1 Madrid Railway Access Plan

The new station by Alberto del Palacio soon exhausted
capacity. Several plans were designed like the one in 1924
to enlarge the terminal, but were never carried out.
Madrid metropolitan area grew up to

900.000 inhabitants on the early thirties. Railway
accesses were congested and connections between
southern and northern stations slow and inconvenient:
the by‐pass line between Atocha and Norte (now
Príncipe Pio) was only used for freight.
After several unsuccessful plans, the Republican
Government (1931‐1939) promoted a new Madrid
Railway Access Plan in 1933. Its main objectives were
the construction of a new station in the north, a
tunnel linking Atocha with the new northern terminal
and a by‐pass line on the northeast, connecting lines Figure 19: Madrid Railway Access Plan.
from Barcelona and Irún (Atlantic French border).
The works were initiated but soon interrupted by the Source: https://informetfm.wordpress.com & JAY
Civil War (1936‐1939).
6.2 Post war crisis and recovery in the 60’s

War damages and harsh economical conditions after the war led to private railway companies’
limited usefulness or even to bankruptcy. In 1941 the Government merged most of them in the
national network ‘Renfe’. The top priority was then rebuilding infrastructures damaged by the
war, but aside from this it was a time of scarce investment, so the network remained basically
like in the 19th century. Nevertheless, economical recovery from 1960 favoured the finishing of
works started by the republican plan: the first North‐South tunnel link opened in 1967; a new
provisory north terminal in Chamartín opened in 1968. The current building was inaugurated
in 1975. North‐western, southern and eastern lines in Madrid region were finally connected.
Nevertheless, the boundary conditions had substantially changed when the new infrastructure
was open: Madrid area had more than tripled its population; road and aerial transportation had
multiplied in a proportion that no one could have imagined in 1933.

Figure 20 and 21: ‘Apeadero’ station in Atocha and Chamartín station.Source: Adif

International Congress on High-speed Rail: Technologies and Long Term Impacts - Ciudad Real (Spain) - 25th anniversary Madrid-Sevilla corridor 107