The Madrid Railway Museum, originally called the National Railway Museum, is an institution dedicated to promoting knowledge and dissemination of the railway in Spain, from its origins to the present day. Opened in 1984 in the historic Delicias station, it is managed by the Spanish Railways Foundation. Since 2009 it has been part of the Network of Museums of Spain, being attached to the Ministry of Public Works.
In 1948, on the 100th anniversary of the first peninsular railway, the one from Barcelona to Mataró in Catalonia, a commemorative exhibition was organised that brought together various objects and locomotives, and interest began to be shown in the creation of a railway museum.
In 1967, the first museum dedicated to the railway was opened in Spain, in the Palacio de Fernán Núñez in Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain (current headquarters of the Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles). It exhibited an original steam locomotive, models, photographs, engravings and objects related to the history and operation of the railway. After an agreement between RENFE and the Ministry of Culture regarding the future of Las Delicias station, the collections were transferred to Las Delicias which opened as a railway museum in 1984.
This new space allowed the museum to expand its collection, including numerous locomotives, railcars and passenger cars in the large central nave.
Estación de Delicias
The building is not to be confused with the station opened in 1996 by Cercanías Madrid called Delicias.
Delicias station, also historically known as Madrid-Delicias, was an important Spanish railway station located in the city of Madrid and which was operational for almost a century, between 1880 and 1969. The facilities are located on Madrid’s Paseo de las Delicias. The building was designed by a French engineer, Émile Cachelièvre.
The station was opened in March 1880 by King Alfonso XII and Maria Christina of Austria. It was commissioned by a short-lived railway company, the Compañía de los Caminos de Hierro de Ciudad Real a Badajoz, which had recently opened a line from Ciudad Real to the capital. One reason for the choice of Delicias as the site of the terminus was the proximity of an existing line, the Ferrocarril de contorno de Madrid, which served industrial areas of Madrid.
In the year the station was opened, the railway company was absorbed by a larger rival, Compañía de los Ferrocarriles de Madrid a Zaragoza y Alicante (MZA). MZA had the use of Atocha station, and did not need Delicias station, which it transferred to a third company, the Compañía de los Ferrocarriles de Madrid a Cáceres y Portugal. An international service to Portugal was developed, but the station never achieved a high volume of passengers, and it closed to passenger traffic in 1969.
Address: Paseo de las Delicias, 61, Arganzuela, 28045 Madrid, Spain.
Working hours:
Thursday 9:30 AM–3 PM
Friday 9:30 AM–3 PM
Saturday 10 AM–3 PM
Sunday 10 AM–3 PM
Monday 9:30 AM–3 PM
Tuesday 9:30 AM–3 PM
Wednesday 9:30 AM–3 PM
See also Catalonia railway museum
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