Local publicly-owned operators include Euskotren in the Basque Country, FGC in Catalonia and Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca in the Balearic Islands.

[9] However, from the mid-1950s onward, the network began to shrink due to the exponential increase in private vehicle ownership in Spain.

During the Spanish economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s, the number of private vehicles in Spain increased more than 14 times from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s.

The current plans of the Spanish government are to finish the standard-gauge high-speed network by building new sections of track and upgrading and converting to standard gauge the existing line along the Mediterranean coast connecting the ports of Barcelona, Tarragona, Valencia, Cartagena and Almería, to link Madrid with Vigo, Santiago and A Coruña in Galicia, to extend the Madrid-Valladolid line to Burgos and the Basque cities of Bilbao and San Sebastián, and to Hendaye on the French border, as well as to link Madrid with Lisbon and the port of Sines through Badajoz.

Former plans by the Popular Party government under Prime Minister Aznar to link all provincial capitals with high-speed rail have been shelved as unrealistic, unaffordable, and contrary to all economic logic as no European funding would be made available for such projects.

[12] This has allowed the conventional lines to increase focus on regional and commuter traffic, along with freight.

Some lines, including the Córdoba-Bobadilla section of the classic Córdoba–Málaga railway, have lost passenger traffic completely due to the opening of AVE serving the same destinations.

Many important mainland Spanish towns remain disconnected from the rail network, the largest being Marbella with a population of over 140,000, along with Roquetas de Mar (pop.

Starting in Franco's regime and continuing into the 1980s, multiple lines of the Spanish rail network were closed.

16 or more train journeys must be made between the aforementioned dates in order to receive a full refund.

Money raised from the tax will also be used to build 12,000 new homes and fund youth scholarship programmes.

[17] High speed rail was first proposed in Spain in the 1980s, joining the Meseta Central and Andalusia.

As such, cities like San Sebastian and Bilbao in the Basque country, Gijón and Oviedo in Asturias or Pamplona in Navarre see services running on the high speed network for some stretches.

Trains also require a transfer at either the Portbou or Cerbère stations, which are separated by a short tunnel.

It connects the Spanish and French high speed networks, as both operate on standard gauge.

Both SNCF and RENFE AVE trains cross the tunnel, connecting Madrid and Barcelona with Marseille, Lyon, Paris and destinations in between.

The line connected Zaragoza with Pau, though it was closed in 1970 after a bridge collapse on the French side of the border.

[20] The Canfranc station currently sees two trains a day, but there are ongoing studies to reopen the line.

There have been proposals to build a new southern crossing over the Guadiana river, between the cities of Ayamonte and Vila Real de Santo António.