The Story of the Railways, Told Through Railway Maps

This map by Francisco Coello, entitled "Plan of the General Lines of Navigation and Railways on the Spanish Peninsula" (1855), is the product of a scheme to create roads, railways, and navigation channels, with the aim of devising a unique transport system for the peninsula.

A combination of radial and transverse lines can be seen in the design of the railway network. The main lines run from Madrid towards coastal areas and borders, while the secondary lines run perpendicularly.

This map, produced and colored by hand, shows the railways built up to 1855, as well as lines under construction and railways of primary, secondary, and tertiary importance.

In 1881 Santiago Folch published a "graphic map of the gross product per kilometer of the Spanish and Portuguese railways", which was a thematic map showing the transport of goods by rail.

The colored lines represent the different operating companies.

What is interesting about the map is the way in which its author has used the thickness of the lines showing the railways to represent the gross product obtained by the transport of goods.

Francisco Atienza produced this interesting map, dated 1882, using colors to highlight how the regions were divided up. The Spanish railway network had not yet changed significantly, and wide open spaces can still be seen in its radial layout.

It also includes a detailed list of factory works, tunnels, and viaducts, all of which would have been very useful for operating the railway, and for determining what resources were available in stations at that time.

The 1930s were productive years for railway cartography. The map published in 1931 by Alfredo Forcano Catalán (Investigations Officer for the Caminos de Hierro del Norte rail company), entitled "Map of Spanish Railways in Operation, Under Construction and Planned for the Future," contains information similar to other maps of the time. However, its presentation and execution are extraordinary, with an extensive use of color to distinguish between different rail companies, and between Spanish and Portuguese territory.

The cartouche features some interesting imagery, depicting a steam locomotive and a diesel locomotive framed by modernist-style edging.

At the end of the Spanish Civil War, and following the crisis that had previously affected the various rail companies, the State decided to nationalize the railways and transfer the management of Spain's rail network to the public sector.

In 1941, Renfe (whose acronym stands for the National Network of Spanish Railways) was created and given responsibility for the standard-gauge rail network. The narrow-gauge rail network remained in the hands of EFE (the State Railway Operating Service) under the Ministry of Public Works, later becoming FEVE (Spanish Narrow-Gauge Railways).

At this point, there was a radical change in railway maps: instead of multiple colors representing the different companies' railway lines, now only one color was needed for the standard-gauge tracks and another for the narrow-gauge tracks. This change is evident on this map, published in 1943 by Jesús de la Fuente, in which the railway lines controlled by Renfe are shown in red.

It shows a network of red lines representing the railway lines controlled by Renfe, as well as the narrow-gauge railways (shown in different colors), differentiated according to the operational areas defined by the State.

This small "Map of the National Network of Spanish Railways," published by Renfe in 1971, is significant because of its modern, groundbreaking design featuring vivid colors, and a red and blue background.

It provides a general outline of the network's main lines, with the type of track specified along each stretch. It also includes information on the main border stations and their international connections, as well as on island transfers by boat.

There are also 2 diagrams showing the stations in Madrid and Barcelona, and the geographical areas covered by trains departing from them.

The "Map of the Spanish Railways" was published as an informative map for Renfe in 1985 by the cartographic department of the publishing house Paraninfo. It included a new feature: an alphabetized index of the main stations shown.

One year later, in 1986, Renfe's Commercial Management Office published an interesting map that was arranged according to the autonomous regions of Spain. Although simple, it was of a very high graphic quality. The map also shows how severely the network was reduced in 1985, with the closed lines appearing in a different format.

The high graphic quality of the map can be seen in this enlargement. The topography is also slightly raised, although this obviously is not visible in the image.

With the arrival of the AVE in 1992, the Madrid-Seville line began to feature prominently on maps, and always in its own color (usually red).

The same year saw the publication of this map, entitled "Renfe: IREN Project (Inventory of the Network's Natural Spaces)," which was later re-published in 1997 and 2000. As well as depicting the newly-opened high-speed line, it shows its relationship with the environment, marking the natural spaces close to the train lines.

It also includes an additional feature for ecotourism: "Green Routes," which are old railway lines that are now closed.

They appear on the map in green, with a different pattern depending on whether they are spaces that are already in use as Green Routes (unbroken line), or could potentially be reclaimed for that purpose (dotted line).