Red Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Españoles (RENFE) was a Spanish state-owned company that operated the national Iberian-gauge railway network between 1941 and 2005.

Although in the "uprising" or "nationalist" zone the railroads continued their independent existence, the actual control was exercised by the military and not by the Boards of Directors.

[3] Faced with this situation, the new Francoist state in 1939 managed the railway companies that were unable to carry out their work, prior to the creation of RENFE in 1941.

At the head of the priority of the collection of the ransoms paid by the State (which would end up being quite high) were the bondholders, followed by the shareholders and, lastly, in the event that there was something left to be distributed, the participating companies.

In the first years of its existence it had to respond to shortages of all kinds and the pressing need to reconstruct the damage caused by the recent Civil War, a difficult task due to the scarcity of economic resources.

The lack of spare parts and wear and tear of the material was the cause of many serious accidents, such as the one that took place in Torre del Bierzo in January 1944, the most serious in the history of Spain.

[5] The Plan also included the renewal of material: the acquisition of 200 locomotives, 5000 wagons and 400 passenger cars was foreseen to complete the initial orders since 1941.

In the fifties, the results of the Guadalhorce Plan began to be seen and to recover, in part, the pre-war situation, but Spain was an impoverished country and the improvements and beginnings of modernization were very timid.

Coinciding with the end of the decade, two events of great importance took place: in 1958 the Zamora-Ourense railroad, whose construction had begun in 1927 and which had dragged on until now, came into service.

This will have an impact on RENFE as it will mark the beginning of an era of extensive reforms aimed at turning the Spanish railroads into an efficient means of transport.

In addition, Cercanías services began to be implemented in Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga and Valencia, with the aim of absorbing the passenger traffic moving in these large urban centers.

In Barcelona, there was a reorganization of the track system that circulated through different areas of the city, as well as the improvement and adaptation of some stations such as Barcelona-Término (renamed Estació de França) and Barcelona-Sants.

It was a great moment for RENFE and the History of the Spanish railroads, which gave the world an image of modernity thanks to the publicity of Expo'92 and the Barcelona Olympics.

On December 30, 1998, the company Gestor de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (GIF) was founded, a public business entity that was created due to the railway transport measures that the European Union began to promote from the Council Directive 91/440/EEC on the Development of Community Railways, which established (among other issues) the separation between the train operators and the infrastructure manager.

The Zone Directors came to have, especially in the decades of the forties and fifties, an almost military authority, often having small automobiles for their personal transportation to inspect the routes they were in charge of.