Gijón Railway Station, also known as Gijón Sanz Crespo, is the main

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

Gijón Gijón () or () is a city and municipality in north-western Spain. It is the largest city and Municipalities of Spain, municipality by population in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Asturias. It is located on the coa ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. Since 2011 it is located in Sanz Crespo street due to the works for the

Metrotrén Asturias Metrotrén Asturias is a project to enhance the Cercanías Asturias commuter rail in Spanish autonomous community of Asturias, primarily by way of an underground tunnel through the city of Gijón.Todotrenes: Metrotrén, la revolución en las cerca ...

project. It is the terminus for

Alvia Alvia is a High-speed rail, high-speed train service in Spain offered by Renfe Operadora on long-distance routes 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 rece ...

services from

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

Alicante Alicante (, , ; ; ; officially: ''/'' ) is a city and municipalities of Spain, municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean port. The population ...

, León,

Valladolid Valladolid ( ; ) is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and ''de facto'' capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the pr ...

and

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

, as well as

Intercity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the train categories in Europe, classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to InterRegio, regional train, r ...

and Media Distancia services from Madrid, Valladolid and León. It is also the last destination for four

Cercanías The commuter rail systems of Spain's major metropolitan areas are called ''Cercanías'' () in most of Spain, ''Rodalia'' () in the Valencian Community, ''Aldiriak'' () in the Basque Country and ''Rodalies'' () in Catalonia. There are twelve ''C ...

commuter railway lines. The station was built in 2009 in order to find an alternative for Gijón-Jovellanos / La Braña and Gijón-Cercanías that were planned to be demolished in order to free up the area for the construction of the Metrotrén, a project to extend the train line underground. As of 2021, Gijón Sanz Crespo remains as the only station serving Gijón downtown, and even though the tunnels have been dug, there is no clear plan on where the new station will be built or even if it will be built at all.

Infrastructure

The station consists of 3 platforms and 6 tracks, of which half are

Iberian gauge Iberian gauge (, ) is a track gauge of , most extensively used by the railways of Spain and Portugal. A broad gauge, it is the second-widest gauge in regular use anywhere in the world, with only Indian gauge railways, , being wider (by ). As ...

and the other half are

metre gauge Metre-gauge railways ( US: meter-gauge railways) are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. Metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by several European colonial powers including France, Britain and ...

. Trains travelling on different gauges have different tickets, trains and controls. Metre-gauge railways were formally operated by Ferrocarriles de Vía Estrecha (FEVE), which was later absorbed by

Renfe Renfe (, ), officially Renfe-Operadora, is Spain's national state-owned railway company. It was created in 2005 upon the split of the former Spanish National Railway Network (RENFE) into the Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias ( ...

, that at the time ran trains on Iberian and international gauge. However, Renfe kept former

FEVE Renfe Cercanías AM, formerly known as Renfe Feve, is a division of state-owned Spanish railway company Renfe Operadora. It operates most of Spain's of metre-gauge railway. This division of Renfe was previously a stand-alone company named F ...

services in a separated division called

Renfe Feve Renfe Cercanías AM, formerly known as Renfe Feve, is a division of state-owned Spanish railway company Renfe Operadora. It operates most of Spain's of metre-gauge railway. This division of Renfe was previously a stand-alone company named F ...

, and as of 2021, fares, tickets and ticket barriers are different from the rest of Renfe trains. Therefore, at the Gijón station it is necessary to separate the tracks on the south side - of metric gauge - from the tracks on the north side - of Iberian gauge -. This situation causes the middle platform to be divided by the east–west axis. The station has information and tickets desks (again separated between gauges) and a small cafeteria. A car-renting company also operates in the station. Urban buses from EMTUSA, Gijón public transport company, stop in front of the station.

References

Railway stations in Spain opened in 2011 Gijón Transport in Asturias Cercanías Asturias stations {{Asturias-stub