🇪🇸 Operator
Train routes operated by Renfe
50 routes · high-speed 18 · classic 22 · scenic 8 · luxury 2
Renfe runs 50 of the routes in the World Train Map atlas, 16,973 km of railway across 2 countries. The longest is the Alvia Vigo–Barcelona at 1,371 km; the fastest is the AVE, running up to 300 km/h; the oldest line it runs over here opened in 1858. 1 of its routes crosses an international border.
The company itself dates to 2005, filed on Wikidata as a railway undertaking. What this page says about the company comes from Renfe's own Wikidata item, checked against the countries its routes here actually cross before any of it is used; everything about the railway is counted from this atlas. Official site ↗ · Wikipedia ↗ · Wikidata Q2476154 ↗
Open the world railway map →- Routes here
- 50
- Total length
- 16,973 km
- Countries
- Spain, France
- Fastest
- AVE · 300 km/h
- Oldest line here
- 1858
- Company founded
- 2005
- Type
- railway undertaking
- Longest
- Alvia Vigo–Barcelona · 1,371 km
High-speed (18)
- AVE
A single high-speed run tying the Mediterranean to the Costa del Sol, skirting Madrid to stitch two AVE corridors together.
Wikipedia ↗ - Alvia
Off the 1992 Madrid–Seville high-speed spine, a gauge-changing Talgo carries on through sherry country to the Atlantic at Cádiz.
Wikipedia ↗ - AVE
Leaps into Galicia through 30 tunnels, including the 8.6 km O Corno bore, then runs on down the Atlantic axis through Santiago de Compostela to the coast at A Coruña.
Wikipedia (ES) ↗ - AVE
Scheduled at 300 km/h, this line flipped one of the world’s busiest air routes to rail.
Wikipedia ↗ - AVE
Opened in 2019, it branches off the Córdoba–Málaga line at Antequera to lift the AVE network into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
Wikipedia ↗ - Alvia
Gauge-changing Alvias to the Basque coast: the 2022 Burgos high-speed line, Vitoria’s green ring and the belle-époque bay of La Concha at the end.
Wikipedia ↗ - Euromed
Talgo tilting sets swap the Madrid high-speed line for the classic Mediterranean corridor at Camp de Tarragona, then follow the coast and the Iberian-gauge line beyond Valencia to Alicante.
Wikipedia ↗ - AVE Madrid–Murcia
High speed reached the Segura in December 2022, running Madrid to Murcia via Cuenca and Albacete on a new elevated approach into the palm-country capital.
Wikipedia ↗ - AVE
Branches off the Madrid–Levante high-speed line to reach the Costa Blanca, opened in 2013 and worked by S-112 “Pato” trainsets.
- AVE Madrid–Oviedo
The 2023 Variante de Pajares pierced the Cantabrian wall with a 25 km base tunnel, cutting Asturias’ link to Madrid to about three hours.
Wikipedia ↗ - AVE
Spain’s first AVE, built for Expo ’92 in standard gauge, the line that reset Spanish railways.
Wikipedia ↗ - Alvia Madrid–Badajoz
High speed reached long-isolated Extremadura in 2022, passing the Roman city of Mérida to the Portuguese border at Badajoz.
Wikipedia ↗ - Alvia
Off the high-speed line at Palencia and over the 1866 Reinosa pass — a mountain descent to the Cantabrian Sea and Santander’s curved bay.
Wikipedia ↗ - AVE
The first stretch of Spain’s Madrid–Barcelona line (2003), crossing the Guadalajara plateau and Ebro valley to Zaragoza in 75 minutes.
- Avant Málaga–Sevilla
Andalusia’s own high-speed shuttle: Málaga to Seville via Córdoba’s mezquita city in two hours, on the S-104 sets built for exactly this.
Wikipedia ↗ - Avant Málaga–Granada
The Bobadilla branch of 1874 served Granada for a century and a half; its high speed replacement opened in 2019, but Málaga meant a change at Antequera until the Gobantes chord made it direct in 2022.
Wikipedia ↗ - Avant Eje Atlántico
Galicia’s rebuilt Atlantic spine: 250 km/h between the rías with Santiago de Compostela halfway — the north–south line Madrid’s radial map forgets.
Wikipedia ↗ - Avant Madrid–Toledo
Thirty-three minutes off the Seville high-speed line to the city on the Tagus bend — El Greco’s Toledo as a Madrid day trip.
Wikipedia ↗
Classic (22)
- Alvia Vigo–Barcelona
Fourteen hours from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, Vigo to Barcelona by Santiago, the Bierzo, León, Pamplona and Zaragoza. At 1,371 km it is the longest scheduled domestic run on this map.
- Jaén–Cádiz
One train across all Andalucía: olive country at Jaén, the Guadalquivir at Córdoba and Seville, sherry country at Jerez, and the Atlantic at Cádiz.
- Jaén–Madrid
The classic climb out of Andalucía: through the Despeñaperros gorge, the old gateway pass, then straight across La Mancha to Madrid.
- Zaragoza–Barcelona by Caspe
MZA’s second way from Zaragoza to the sea, built to cut out Lleida: Reus to Móra opened in 1891, Caspe was reached in 1893, the line was complete in 1894 and carried its first trains in 1895.
Wikipedia ↗ - Ciudad Real–Badajoz railway
338 km west across La Mancha and the Extremadura dehesa, from Ciudad Real to the Portuguese border city of Badajoz, on track opened in 1866.
Wikipedia (ES) ↗ - Valladolid–Puebla de Sanabria railway
Thirty years of building, some of it by Republican prisoners at forced labour: the climb from Zamora to Puebla de Sanabria opened on 23 September 1952.
Wikipedia ↗ - Linares Baeza–Almería railway
Iberian gauge from the Alcázar–Cádiz main line at Linares down through the Sierra to the Mediterranean at Almería, through the desert country the spaghetti Westerns made famous.
Wikipedia ↗ - Alvia Madrid–Salamanca
Over the Guadarrama by high-speed line, then across Castile to the golden sandstone of Salamanca in well under two hours.
Wikipedia ↗ - Zafra–Huelva railway
Built in 1889 to carry Sierra de Aracena ore down to the quays at Huelva, and still crossing it past halts named for villages miles from the line: Jabugo, Almonaster, Valdelamusa.
Wikipedia ↗ - Monforte de Lemos–A Coruña railway
For seventy years the only railway between Galicia and the meseta: Lugo to A Coruña opened on 10 October 1875, and the last stretch east of Monforte on 4 September 1883.
Wikipedia ↗ - Valencia–Alicante line
The Iberian-gauge coastal alternative to the AVE: 1,668 mm single track through Xàtiva and Villena, still worked end to end by the Euromed.
- Almería–Granada
Across the high desert of the Hoya de Guadix: Almería’s palms to Granada by way of Moreda, through the badlands the spaghetti Westerns loved.
- R13 Barcelona–Lleida
Barcelona to Lleida the slow way, three and three quarter hours down the coast to Vilanova and then inland by Valls and Montblanc, on the Valls to Vilanova line of 29 December 1881.
- Sevilla–Zafra
North out of Seville into the Sierra Morena: cork oaks and mining country by Cazalla and Llerena to the junction town of Zafra.
Wikipedia ↗ - Castejón–Alsasua railway
Iberian-gauge track up the Ebro and over into Navarre, opened in 1865 and still the Madrid–Basque Country road through Altsasu.
- R-1 Madrid–Ávila
Out of Madrid past El Escorial and over the Guadarrama to Ávila and its complete medieval walls, on the main line to the French border built between 1860 and 1864.
- MD León–Ponferrada
The Rampa de Brañuelas took more than a decade to build and helped bankrupt the company that began it. León to Ponferrada over the Montes de León in under two hours, through since 4 February 1882.
- Sevilla–Huelva
The 1880 MZA line west over the Guadalquivir plain and Condado vineyards to the Atlantic at Huelva, whose neo-Mudéjar terminus has stood empty since 2019 and lost its roof to a fire in 2022.
Wikipedia (ES) ↗ - Manresa–Lleida railway
Inland Catalonia the slow way, over the Segarra plateau by Calaf and Cervera; the first trains ran into Lleida in 1860 while the coastal route through Valls took the traffic.
Wikipedia (CA) ↗ - Alicante–Murcia line
Iberian gauge since 1884, threading the Elche palm groves and the Segura valley between two provincial capitals in under an hour.
Wikipedia ↗ - C-1 Gijon-Puente de los Fierros
Up the Caudal valley from the Asturian coast through Oviedo and Pola de Lena to Puente de los Fierros, where the line stops at the foot of the Pajares ramp and the climb to Leon begins.
- Manzanares–Ciudad Real line
Single Iberian-gauge track across La Mancha, opened in 1861 by the MZA company and electrified today as Adif's line 522.
Wikipedia (ES) ↗
Scenic (8)
- Zaragoza–València (via Teruel)
The emptiest main line in Spain: five hours via Teruel — a provincial capital with no direct Madrid train — through ochre gorges to the Mediterranean.
Wikipedia (ES) ↗ - Media Distancia R-1f
Europe’s longest narrow-gauge ride: two trains a day take seven hours to weave around Galicia’s rias and along the Asturian cliffs from Ferrol to Oviedo.
Wikipedia (ES) ↗ - El Canfranero
Reopened in June 2025 after two years of works, the line climbs to Europe’s grandest abandoned border station, shut since a 1970 bridge collapse.
Wikipedia (ES) ↗ - Málaga–Sevilla
The slow way between Andalucía’s two great cities: up the Guadalhorce past El Chorro’s gorge, beneath the Caminito del Rey walkway, then across the campiña by Osuna and Marchena.
- Mr Henderson’s Railway
Up the Serranía de Ronda from Gibraltar bay: the British-built 1892 line that is Mr Henderson’s railway proper, Algeciras to the Bobadilla plain, ending today at Antequera Santa Ana’s high-speed interchange.
Wikipedia ↗ - Rodalies R3
Climbs from Barcelona to 1,494 m at Toses — the roof of the Spanish network — to meet the Yellow Train across the platform at Latour-de-Carol.
Wikipedia ↗ - Media Distancia R-3f
Three metre-gauge trains a day still thread all 119 km of the 1898 Santander–Bilbao railway, winding through green Basque and Cantabrian valleys.
Wikipedia ↗ - Xàtiva–Alcoi railway
Iberian-gauge single track opened in 1904, climbing 64 km of viaducts and tunnels from the Xàtiva plain into the mountains at Alcoi.
Wikipedia (ES) ↗
Luxury (2)
- El Transcantábrico
Spain’s first hotel-train (1983): an eight-day, metre-gauge cruise along the green Cantabrian coast from the Basque Country to Galicia.
Wikipedia ↗ - El Expreso de La Robla
Retraces the historic La Robla coal railway, Spain’s longest narrow-gauge line, on a three-day luxury run between Bilbao and León.
Wikipedia ↗
Photos via Wikimedia Commons — each route page credits the author & licence
How many train routes does Renfe run?
50 of the routes in this atlas are Renfe services, covering 16,973 km across 2 countries (Spain, France). That is what this atlas draws, not the operator's whole network — a national railway runs thousands of local services no map of notable journeys would list.
What is the fastest Renfe train?
The AVE, Barcelona to Málaga, at up to 300 km/h. Its fastest scheduled run takes 6 h 57 min over 1,119 km.
Does Renfe run night trains?
Not in this atlas. All 50 Renfe routes listed here are daytime services.
When was Renfe founded?
Wikidata records the company's inception as 2005, and files it as a railway undertaking. The oldest railway it runs over in this atlas opened in 1858 — the line and the company are rarely the same age, and this page dates both.
Countries Renfe runs in
- 🇫🇷 Train routes in France 109 routes
- 🇪🇸 Train routes in Spain 67 routes
Other operators in Spain
- FGC 3 routes