The first railway in Spain opened on 28th October, 1848 between Barcelona and Mataro. Although the standard gauge of 1435mm had by then been adopted in several European countries, the new line used a broader gauge of 1674mm (6 Catalan feet). This became the main line standard throughout the Iberian peninsular and has caused problems ever since.
Unlike the break of gauge situation between Great Britain and Ireland, which involved a sea crossing anyway, or between Russia and the rest of Europe which historically was never a heavily used land crossing for political reasons, overland international traffic between Spain and neighbouring France has always been significant. Elaborate gauge-changing facilities at Irun and Hendaye on the Atlantic coast, and Port Bou and Cerbère on the Mediterranean, allow both freight and passenger trains to conduct a relatively uninterrupted journey across the French border. At one time, there was even a Madrid to Moscow sleeping car service, which involved two changes of gauge.
The first dedicated high speed line (AVE) between Madrid and Seville opened in 1992 with a gauge of 1435mm. This enabled the project to use essentially off-the shelf French technology, but may have been done with half an eye to the possible future regauging of the entire Spanish network. Subsequent thinking has changed, however, and newer high speed lines are being built to 1674mm gauge. This allows significant cost savings on city approaches, for example, where the sharing of a suitably modified infrastructure with existing services allows a much smaller land take with minimal impact on journey times. Furthermore, it is likely that future high speed lines throughout Europe will have to share some of their capacity with freight traffic, hence the desirability of sharing the same gauge as that of connecting lines.
Under EU regulations, train operation and infrastructure costs must be separately accountable. Spain, like many other European countries, has chosen to implement this by spinning off a separate infrastructure company (GIF), which has responsibility for the extensive narrow gauge (1000mm) network as well as the main-line network. The State Railway company operates international and inter-city passenger trains and most freight. A separate company, FEVE, operates most of the narrow gauge lines. Several regional companies have been spun off to operate broad and narrow gauge passenger trains in their own area.
This small island boasts several railways:
