Museo del Ferrocarril de Madrid

The Museo del Ferrocarril de Madrid (Madrid Railway Museum) occupies the former Delicias station, the first railway station in Madrid built with an iron-and-glass structure. Designed by the French engineer Émile Cachelièvre and erected in just eleven months, the station was inaugurated on 30 March 1880 at a ceremony presided over by King Alfonso XII and Queen María Cristina. It served as the terminus of the Madrid–Ciudad Real line, which continued to the Portuguese border at Badajoz, and stayed in railway use until it closed to traffic in 1971. The great central train shed — roughly 170 metres (558 ft) long, 35 metres (115 ft) wide and 22.5 metres (74 ft) high — is carried on seventeen cast-iron porticoes and is a protected monument of nineteenth-century engineering in its own right.

Originally called the Museo Nacional Ferroviario, the museum opened to the public on 19 December 1984 after the collection was moved from the Palacio de Fernán Núñez, where the first Spanish railway museum had operated since 1967. It is run by the Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles (Spanish Railways Foundation) and has belonged to the national museum network of Spain since 2009. The complex also holds the Railway Historical Archive and the Railway Library and Newspaper Library, the only research collection of its kind in Spain.

The rolling-stock collection is regarded as one of the finest in Europe: more than 400 pieces, over 40 percent of them locomotives (steam, electric and diesel), together with railcars and nearly 150 passenger carriages, drawn from a wider railway heritage holding of more than 6,300 items that trace the history of the railway in Spain.

The glazed central nave gives even, diffuse daylight, which makes the train shed itself the strongest subject — especially the receding line of cast-iron porticoes framing the locomotives. Light through the roof glazing is at its best in the hours after opening. The «Confederación» and the Pacific express locomotive are the most photogenic large exhibits, while the sectioned Mikado offers unusual detail shots of a boiler and motion cut open. Personal photography and tripods are generally welcomed in the public halls; confirm current rules and any limits on temporary exhibitions at the ticket desk.

For railway enthusiasts the highlight is the steam fleet displayed beneath the historic train shed, spanning locomotives built from the 1860s to the 1960s by British, French, Belgian and Spanish makers. The star exhibit is the 242F-2009 «Confederación», regarded as the summit of Spanish steam: rated at 2,700 CV, it exceeded 140 km/h (87 mph) in trials — a Spanish steam speed record — and only ten were ever built. They hauled expresses of up to 18 coaches and 810 tonnes on the Ávila–Alsasua section of the Madrid–Irún line before withdrawal in 1975.

Other standouts include a Pacific-type express locomotive (231-2006) supplied by Babcock & Wilcox of Bilbao for the 1929 Ibero-American Exhibition, with driving wheels 1.90 metres (6 ft 3 in) across; a sectioned Mikado (141F) — one of 217 built entirely in Spain — cut away to reveal its inner mechanism for teaching; and «Marilyn», the first mainline diesel-electric locomotive to run on RENFE. The collection also preserves a Talgo II set with the diesel locomotive «Virgen de Aránzazu», both built in 1949 by American Car and Foundry, the first Talgo to enter commercial service.

Beyond the locomotives, the museum keeps the «Mataró» clock used to dispatch the first train on the Spanish mainland in 1848, and the hydraulic interlocking frame from Algodor — a 1927 installation with 110 water-driven levers, the only one of its type preserved in Spain.

Visitors enter directly under the vast glazed train shed, where locomotives and carriages stand along preserved platform tracks in a bright, column-free hall. Most exhibits can be viewed at close range, and several carriages and cab interiors are accessible. Allow about two to three hours for the vehicle collection, the model-railway room and the temporary exhibitions, which are included with admission.

The museum is a well-known family destination and is busiest at weekends and on market days. On the second weekend of most months (except July and August) the halls host the Mercado de Motores, a vintage and second-hand market, during which the normal museum activity is suspended — worth checking the calendar before a visit. On Saturdays the Círculo Madrileño Ferroviario (CIMAF) runs rideable garden trains on a 5-inch (127 mm) gauge circuit from 11:30 to 14:00, a popular activity that pauses over the summer and resumes in September.

Note that the large «Territorio Ferroviario» model layout — an HO-scale (1:87) diorama with 850 metres of track over 300 square metres — is currently closed to the public for technical reasons until further notice.