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 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 ...

and

Seville Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...

. The first Spanish

high-speed rail High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail transport network utilising trains that run significantly faster than those of traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated railway track, tracks. While there is ...

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 Córdoba most commonly refers to: * Córdoba, Spain, a major city in southern Spain and formerly the imperial capital of Islamic Spain * Córdoba, Argentina, the second largest city in Argentina and the capital of Córdoba Province Córdoba or Cord ...

the Madrid–Málaga high-speed rail line leaves the line from Madrid. At Seville the line is extended to

Cádiz Cádiz ( , , ) is a city in Spain and the capital of the Province of Cádiz in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. It is located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula off the Atlantic Ocean separated fr ...

only for the

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 ...

service.

Routing

The line starts at Madrid-Atocha and runs over 31

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

s (total length ) and through 17

tunnel A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two portals common at each end, though there may be access and ve ...

s (total length , crossing the

plain In geography, a plain, commonly known as flatland, 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 ...

s of the southern half of the Inner Plateau. It climbs south of

Toledo Toledo most commonly refers to: * Toledo, Spain, a city in Spain * Province of Toledo, Spain * Toledo, Ohio, a city in the United States Toledo may also refer to: Places Belize * Toledo District * Toledo Settlement Bolivia * Toledo, Or ...

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 , and then descends to around

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

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 in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

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

transformer In electrical engineering, a transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple Electrical network, circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces ...

s feed the

overhead wires An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, electric multiple units, trolleybuses or trams. The generic term used by the International Union of Railways for the tec ...

. 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 ADIF (, an acronym of ) is a Spanish state-owned railway infrastructure manager. This state owned company reports to the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility. ADIF is charged with the management of most of Spain's railway infrastru ...

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 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 ( ...

-type 104 will be able to run at instead of . 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 British 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 tran ...

''. 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 train Rescue comprises responsive operations that usually involve the saving of life, removal from danger, liberation from restraint, or the urgent treatment of injuries after an incident. It may be facilitated by a range of tools and equipment nece ...

s. 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 during the sections of the track close to Madrid. They travel at 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 ). According to the HS2 website, a track needs a curvature of and a track needs a curvature of . As the necessary curvature increases in proportion to the square of the maximum velocity, the maximum safe speed for a curvature of would be , assuming no tilting technology: - only the

AVE Class 100 The Renfe Class 100 is a high-speed train used for AVE services by the Renfe Operadora, in Spain. It was the first high-speed train put into service in Spain, in 1992. History This class lived through all the changes involved in the creation ...

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 push-pull high-sp ...

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 between Córdoba and Seville, possibly on account of the

Avant Avant can refer to: People * Avant, part of music production team Bloodshy & Avant * Avant (singer), Myron Avant, an American singer * Clarence Avant, a music executive * Jason Avant, is a US American football player Places * Avant, Oklahoma, ...

services that also use the line, whose trains are limited to . On most journeys, the trains spend a very small proportion of the journey travelling above , although most of the Málaga branch is done at (save for station approaches and the Gobantes and Abdalajís tunnels). The trains slow down to approximately when travelling through Ciudad Real station. They also have to slow down to 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 is a Latin word, used by the Roman Empire, Romans as a salutation (greeting), salutation and greeting, meaning 'wikt:hail, hail'. It is the singular imperative mood, imperative form of the verb , which meant 'Well-being, to be well'; thus on ...

followed; these trains were ordered by 23 December 1988. The first train, based on the third generation of

TGV The TGV (; , , 'high-speed train') is France's intercity high-speed rail service. With commercial operating speeds of up to on the newer lines, the TGV was conceived at the same period as other technological projects such as the Ariane 1 rocke ...

s, 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 time for the

Seville Expo '92 The Universal Exhibition of Seville 1992 – Expo '92 (officially: ) was a universal exhibition held from Monday 20 April to Monday 12 October 1992, at the , in Seville, Spain. The theme for the expo was "The Age of Discoveries", celebrating the ...

opened on 20 April. The

high-speed service was introduced for first time on the 476 km long Madrid–Seville route on S-100 trains capable to reach speeds up to 300 km/h and traveling at more than 250 km/h. Non-stop travel time between the two cities were 2:45 hrs; with stops at

Ciudad Real Ciudad Real (, ) 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. It was founded as Villa Real in 1255 as a ro ...

Puertollano Puertollano () is a municipalities of Spain, municipality of Spain located in the province of Ciudad Real, Castile-La Mancha. The city has a population of 45,539 (2022). Contrasting to the largely rural character of the region, Puertollano stands o ...

and

it was 2:55 hrs. In the first weeks, over 23 thousand passengers used the new trains - an occupancy rate of 81%. Six months later a high-speed shuttle service between Madrid, Ciudad Real and Puertollano was introduced called AVE Lanzadera, which was later renamed to

. In 1994 trains in commercial service reached 300 km/h for the first time and travel time between Madrid and Seville was reduced down to 2 hours and 20 minutes. The new railway line radically changed the

modal split A modal share (also called mode split, mode-share, or modal split) is the percentage of travelers using a particular type of transportation or number of trips using said type. In freight transportation, this may be measured in mass. Modal share ...

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 a request to the president of Renfe by the Malagón City Council and the Ciudad Real Provincial Council to reopen the station in

Malagón Malagón is a municipality of Spain in the Province of Ciudad Real in the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. The municipality has a population of 7,754 inhabitants ( INE 2024). Geography Malagón is located in the northern sector of ...

, which was closed during construction of the Madrid-Seville high-speed line, was denied. 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. In 2004 Renfe launched a new Avant service on the Córdoba - Seville section on trains designed specifically to cover medium-distance routes at a maximum speed of 250 km/h. In 2014, a new station was added in

Villanueva de Córdoba Villanueva de Córdoba is a city located in the province of Córdoba, Spain. , the city has a population of 9,599 inhabitants. The city is located in Andalusia, southern Spain, close to the capital of the province of Córdoba. See also * List of ...

, between Córdoba and Puertollano, to improve accessibility of the

Los Pedroches Los Pedroches is a natural region and comarca in Córdoba Province, Andalusia, southern Spain. It is located in the Sierra Morena area at the northern end of the province. The main town is Pozoblanco. The climate of the comarca is continenta ...

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 Cádiz railway station is the main railway station of the Spanish city of Cádiz, Andalusia. It served over 1.2 million passengers in 2018, of which 350,000 were Cercanías Cádiz passengers. Services Alvia services use the Madrid–Seville hig ...

was completed after 14 years of works and put in service by

trains for speeds up to . This section is built on

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 ...

track. With less stops between Seville and Cádiz and with possible installation of ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) railway signaling in the line, the maximum speed for the trains can be raised up to 250 km/h. In that case AVE services to Cádiz on dual-gauge Class 106 trains could be possible. In May 2025, four segments of a cable used in the railway's signaling system were stolen in

, causing extensive travel disruptions.

Sources

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

References

External links