🇪🇸 Operator
Train routes operated by Renfe
37 routes · high-speed 17 · classic 10 · scenic 8 · luxury 2
Renfe runs 37 of the routes in the World Train Map atlas, 13,314 km of railway across 2 countries. The longest is the AVE at 1,121 km; the fastest is the AVE, running up to 300 km/h; the oldest line it runs over here opened in 1861. 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
- 37
- Total length
- 13,314 km
- Countries
- Spain, France
- Fastest
- AVE · 300 km/h
- Longest
- AVE · 1,121 km
- Oldest line here
- 1861
- Company founded
- 2005
- Type
- railway undertaking
High-speed (17)
- 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 310 km/h, Europe’s fastest timetable, 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 ↗ - 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 ↗ - 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 ↗ - 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 ↗ - Euromed
Talgo tilting sets swap the Madrid high-speed line for the classic Mediterranean corridor at Camp de Tarragona, running within sight of the beaches.
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 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 (10)
- 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.
- 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) ↗ - 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 ↗ - 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.
- 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.
- 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) ↗ - 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) ↗ - 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.
- 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) ↗ - 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?
37 of the routes in this atlas are Renfe services, covering 13,314 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 5 h 52 min over 1,121 km.
Does Renfe run night trains?
Not in this atlas. All 37 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 1861 — the line and the company are rarely the same age, and this page dates both.
Countries Renfe runs in
- 🇫🇷 Train routes in France 103 routes
- 🇪🇸 Train routes in Spain 53 routes
Other operators in Spain
- FGC 3 routes