Metric gauge network

Feve has been the company that has managed the most extensive metric network in Europe, with 1,192 km of narrow gauge. The integration involves reaching 1,210 km in metric width, by adding the 18 km that Adif manages between Cercedilla and Cotos (Madrid) and the 1,192 km that Feve has distributed throughout the northern provinces of Spain (La Coruña, Lugo, Asturias, Cantabria, Vizcaya, Burgos, Palencia, León) and Murcia (Cartagena-Los Nietos line).

The first narrow-gauge railways emerged as a solution to the transport problem before the development of road traffic. In the Cantabrian Coast they were implemented as a network adapted to the geographical and economic characteristics of the areas they served. The orographic difficulties made it necessary to choose narrow-gauge railways, given the high cost of broad-gauge lines.

In 1965, the Statute was drafted and the current name of Ferrocarriles de Vía Estrecha (Feve) was adopted to group lines of gauges less than the traditional Iberian gauge in Spain, which, until then, were included in the company EFE (Stae Railway Company). Throughout its history, FEVE has simultaneously owned five different gauge railways: 1,435mm, 1,062mm, 1,000mm, 915mm and 750mm.

As of 1978, as a consequence of the new autonomous territorial organization of the State, a series of lines were transferred to their respective autonomous communities. This was the case of the railways of Catalonia (1978), Valencia (1986) and part of the network in the Basque Country (1979). The same happened with the Ferrocarriles de Mallorca (1994).

The information provided so far by the www.feve.es portal has been offered, since the beginning of 2013, on the Renfe web pages (www.renfe.es), with regard to rail transport services for passengers and goods, and Adif (www.adif.es), with regard to railway infrastructures.