Atocha

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Atocha

Atocha Station is the largest railway station

Train station

|}A train station, railway station, railroad station, or station yard is a facility at which passengers may board and alight from trains and/or rail-transported freight may be loaded or unloaded....
in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the Capital and largest city of Spain. It is the Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its Madrid metropolitan area is the Largest urban areas of the European Union in the European Union after Paris aire urbaine, Greater London Urban Area, a...
. It is the primary station serving commuter trains (Cercanías

Cercanías Madrid

Cercan?as Madrid is the commuter rail service that serves Madrid, the capital of Spain, and its metropolitan area. It is operated by Cercan?as Renfe, the commuter rail division of RENFE, the former monopoly of rail services in Spain....
), intercity and regional trains from the south, and the AVE

AVE

Alta Velocidad Espa?ola is a service of high speed trains operating at speeds of up to on dedicated track in Spain. The name is literally translated from Spanish language as "Spanish High Speed", but also a play on the word , meaning "bird"....
high speed train

High-speed rail

High-speed rail is a type of passenger rail transport that operates significantly faster than the normal speed of rail traffic. Specific definitions include 200 km/h and faster ? depending on whether the track is upgraded or new ? by the European Union, and above 90 mph by the United States Federal Railroad Administration, but...
s from Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the capital and most populous city of the Autonomous communities of Spain of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008, while the population of the Metropolitan Area was 3,161,081....
(Catalonia

Catalonia

Catalonia , is an Autonomous Community in northeast Spain.Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km? and has an official population of 7,210,508. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the east ....
) and Seville

Seville

||-||}Seville is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of Andalusia and of the province of Seville ....
(Andalusia

Andalusia

Andalusia is a country in the Spanish State. It is the most populous and the second largest, in terms of land area, of the seventeen autonomous communities of the Spain....
). These train services are run by the Spanish national rail company, Renfe

RENFE

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Encyclopedia

Atocha Station is the largest railway station

Train station

Madrid

Cercanías Madrid

AVE

High-speed rail

Barcelona

Catalonia

Seville

||-||}Seville is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of Andalusia and of the province of Seville ....
(Andalusia

Andalusia

RENFE

Renfe Operadora is the state-owned company which operates freight and passenger trains on the 1668-mm "Iberian gauge" and 1435-mm "Standard gauge" networks of the Spain national railway infrastructure company :es:Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias ....
.

The station was Madrid's first railway station. It was inaugurated on 9 February 1851 under the name Estación de Mediodía (Atocha-Mediodía is now the name of an area of the Arganzuela district, and means in old Spanish south

South

South is one of the cardinal directions and is opposite to the north.By Western world Norm , the bottom side of a map is south; the southern direction has azimuth or bearing of 180?....
).

After the building was largely destroyed by fire, it was rebuilt and reopened in 1892. The architect for the replacement, in a wrought iron

Wrought iron

Wrought iron is commercially pure iron. In contrast to steel, it has a very low carbon content. It is a fibrous material due to the slag Inclusion ....
renewal style was Alberto de Palacio Elissagne

Alberto Palacio

Alberto de Palacio y Elissague was a Spain engineer and architect born in Sare and grown up in Bilbao.He studied architecture in Barcelona and completed his education in Paris, studying mathematics, engineering, astronomy and medicine....
, who collaborated with Gustave Eiffel

Gustave Eiffel

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was a France structural engineer and architect and a specialist of metallic structures. He is famous for designing the Eiffel Tower, built 1887?1889 for the Exposition Universelle in Paris, France, the Basilica Minore de San Sebastian, the only all-steel basilica in Asia, found in the Philippines, and the armature...
. Engineer Henry Saint James also took part in the project.

This old building was taken out of service in 1992 and converted into a concourse with shops, cafés, a nightclub, and a 4,000 m² covered tropical garden. A modern terminal by Rafael Moneo

Rafael Moneo

Jos? Rafael Moneo Vall?s is a Spain architect. He was born in Tudela, Spain, and won the Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1996. He studied at the ETSAM, Technical University of Madrid from which he received his architectural degree in 1961....
, designed to serve the new AVE trains to Seville, was added to the complex.

The main lines end in the new terminal; commuter train platforms are located underground, at the ingress to a rail tunnel extending northward under the Paseo de la Castellana.

The station, located on the Plaza del Emperador Carlos V, is served by two Madrid Metro

Madrid Metro

The Madrid Metro is the large rapid transit system serving the city of Madrid.It is one of the largest metro systems in the world, which is especially remarkable considering Madrid's population of approximately 3.5 million to 6 million ....
stations

Metro station

A metro station is a train station for a rapid transit system, often known by names such as "metro", "underground" and "subway". It is often underground or elevated....
, Atocha and Atocha Renfe. The latter was added when the new terminal building was constructed and is directly linked to the railway station.

The Reina Sofía

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sof?a is the official name of Spain's national museum of 20th century art . The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992 and is named for Queen Sofia of Spain....
museum is in the vicinity of Atocha.

The station was in the International Media because of the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings.

On 10 June 2004, a virtual shrine was dedicated by the Spanish Minister of Transport. Visitors to the attacked stations can leave a hand

Hand

The hands are the two intricate, prehensile, multi-fingered body parts normally located at the end of each arm of a human or other primate. They are the chief organs for physically manipulating the environment, using anywhere from the roughest motor skills to the finest , and since the fingertips contain some of the densest areas of nerve e...
silhouette and a message through special-purpose consoles.

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Atocha

See also

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