Our beginnings, those of rail travel in Spain, date back 80 years, when a process of reconstructing and nationalising the railway industry took place and gave rise to the Red Nacional de Ferrocarriles Españoles (RENFE: National Network of Spanish Railways) in 1941.
From that moment on, work began on gradually replacing the steam system with an electrical system. It was followed by the first commercial Talgo and the first diesel locomotives. Technological renewal marked development in the 1950s.
The infrastructure upgrade work started from the mid-60s onwards. Likewise, at the beginning of the 80s, Spain took one of the main strategic decisions for the future of railways, committing, firstly, to the creation of Cercanías (Commuter) in large urban areas and, secondly, to the development of a network of Alta Velocidad (high-speed) infrastructures that would culminate in the inauguration of the Madrid-Seville AVE (high-speed) in 1992, which would be definitively developed from the decade 2000 to the present day.
Renfe is now a world-class transport operator, independent of infrastructure management since 2005 and, therefore, fully adapted to the liberalisation scenario in Europe.