The Madrid–Sevilla high-speed line (NAFA or ''Nuevo Acceso Ferroviario a Andalucía'') is a Spanish railway line for high-speed traffic between

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

and

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

. The first Spanish

high-speed rail High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail system that runs significantly faster than traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated tracks. While there is no single standard that applies worldwide, lines ...

connection has been in use since 21 April 1992 at speeds up to 300 km/h (186 mph). Travel time between the two end points was reduced by over half. At Córdoba the Madrid–Málaga high-speed rail line leaves the line from Madrid. At Seville the line is extended to

Cádiz Cádiz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia. Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...

only for the

Alvia Alvia is a high-speed train service in Spain used by Renfe Operadora for long-distance service with a top speed of . The trains have the ability to use both Iberian gauge and standard gauge, which allows them to travel on the recently construct ...

service.

Routing

The line starts at Madrid-Atocha and runs over 31 bridges (total length ) and through 17

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube const ...

s (total length , crossing the

plain In geography, a plain is a flat expanse of land that generally does not change much in elevation, and is primarily treeless. Plains occur as lowlands along valleys or at the base of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands ...

s of the southern half of the Inner Plateau. It climbs south of Toledo as well as when crossing the

Sierra Morena The Sierra Morena is one of the main systems of mountain ranges in Spain. It stretches for 450 kilometres from east to west across the south of the Iberian Peninsula, forming the southern border of the ''Meseta Central'' plateau and providi ...

to an altitude of 800 meters, and then descends to around

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

as it approaches Seville. The terminus of the line is the new railway station Santa Justa in Seville.

Technical details

The high-speed line was constructed at

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

, in contrast with the rest of the Spanish railway network. Voltage is 25 kV AC instead of 3000 V DC. Twelve

transformer A transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's ...

s feed the overhead wires. Some before the start and end points of the line, the line merges with local DC tracks. The line was equipped with signalling standards that had been developed in the 80s for the German Hanover-Würzburg high-speed rail line and the Mannheim-Stuttgart high-speed rail line. At the end of 2006, Spanish governmental agency ADIF ordered technical changes to the safety systems along the line for an amount of €12.6 million, so that in the future, trains of the RENFE-type 104 will be able to run at 200 instead of 180 km/h. A further amount of €4.1 million has been spent on changes to the ASFA train safety system.''High speed advances in Spain''. In: ''

Railway Gazette International ''Railway Gazette International'' is a monthly business magazine and news website covering the railway, metro, light rail and tram industries worldwide. Available by annual subscription, the magazine is read in over 140 countries by transport ...

''. 163, nr. 1, 2007, , page 4 Between the railway stations along the line, passing stations and emergency stations are located (in Spanish: ''Puesto de adelantamiento y estacionamiento de trenes'', abbr. ''PAET''). These allow faster trains to overtake slower trains, and the parking of rescue trains. In addition, most of these stations have basic platforms that can be used to let passengers descend and change to buses in case of emergency. Trains travel along the line at 300 km/h during the sections of the track close to Madrid. They travel at 200 km/h through the Sierra Morena region, possibly because the S/100 trains aren't pressure-sealed and this section includes many tunnels and also because of the tight curvatures in the Sierra Morena (occasionally dipping as low as 2300m). According to the HS2 website, a 200 km/h track needs a curvature of 1800m and a 400 km/h track needs a curvature of 7200m. As the necessary curvature increases in proportion to the square of the maximum velocity, the maximum safe speed for a curvature of 2300m would be 226 km/h, assuming no tilting technology: - only the AVE Class 100,

AVE Class 102 The Renfe Class 102 or S-102S-102 denotes 'Serie 102 de Renfe', the 1xx series is used for fixed passenger high speed electric trains (nicknamed "Pato" in Spanish, because of its nose that looks like the beak of a duck) is a high-speed train us ...

and

AVE Class 103 The Renfe Class 103 is a high-speed train used for the AVE service and operated in Spain by the state-run railway company RENFE. The trainset is also known as S103 or S/103. The trains were constructed by Siemens, as the second member of the co ...

run through the Sierra Morena section, of which only the

has tilting technology. The trains travel at a top speed of 250 km/h between Córdoba and Seville, possibly on account of the AVANT services that also use the line, whose trains are limited to 250 km/h. On most journeys, the trains spend a very small proportion of the journey travelling above 250 km/h, although most of the Málaga branch is done at 300 km/h (save for station approaches and the Gobantes and Abdalajís tunnels). The trains slow down to approximately 160 km/h when travelling through Ciudad Real station. They also have to slow down to 70 km/h when travelling through Puertollano station because of the lack of a bypass route and tight curvatures in the station.

History

On 11 October 1986 the Spanish government decided to build a new railway between Madrid and Seville. On 25 February 1988, the international tender for the acquisition of 24 high-speed trains AVE followed; these trains were ordered by 23 December 1988. The first train, based on the third generation of TGVs, was delivered on 10 October 1991. In December 1988 it was decided to build the new line in

. Construction was ordered on 16 March 1989, and it lasted for 33 months; actual construction activity lasted only 24 months. Commercial use of the line commenced on 21 April 1992. In the first weeks, over 23 thousand passengers used the new trains - an occupancy rate of 81%. On 20 April 1992, services started between Madrid and Seville. Non-stop travel time between the two cities were 2:45 hrs; with stops at

Ciudad Real Ciudad Real (, ; en, "Royal City") is a municipality of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha, capital of the province of Ciudad Real. It is the 5th most populated municipality in the region. History It was founde ...

, Puertollano and Córdoba it was 2:55 hrs. In 1992, tickets cost around 50-70 euros in second class, in first class over 100 euros. In 2014, a new station was added in Villanueva de Córdoba, between Córdoba and Puertollano, to improve accessibility of the Los Pedroches region. The line later received branches in Andalusia. In October 2015 an extension of the Madrid-Seville high-speed rail line to Cádiz railway station was completed after 14 years of works and put in service by

trains for speeds up to 200 km/h.

Impact

The new railway line radically changed the modal split between Madrid and Seville. The share of air traffic decreased between 1991 and 1994 from 40% to 13%; the combined share of car and bus decreased from 44% to 36%. The share of railway traffic increased from 16% to 51%, while total traffic increased by 35%.Moshe Givoni: ''Development and Impact of the Modern High-speed Train: A Review''. In: ''Transport Reviews''. 26, Nr. 5, Jahr, , S. 593–611 In 1997, some 4.4 million passengers travelled along the line; in 1998, 4.75 million. By 1999, trains transported over 4 times as many passengers as planes between Seville and Madrid.''Spanish To Build More High-Speed Lines''
International Railway Journal, Sept. 1999.

Sources

*''Hochgeschwindigkeitsverkehr in Spanien aufgenommen'' and ''Neubaustrecke Madrid–Sevilla in Betrieb'', in: ''Eisenbahntechnische Rundschau'', June 1992, page 354 f.

References

External links

''LAV Madrid - Sevilla''
on ''Ferropedia'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Madrid-Seville high-speed rail line High-speed railway lines in Spain Rail transport in Madrid Railway lines opened in 1992 1992 establishments in Spain Standard gauge railways in Spain