he Museum’s main mission is gathering, preserving and researching the railway’s historic and cultural heritage, and exhibiting it from numerous perspectives. It promotes its study and dissemination by means of museum, educational, scientific activities or by the operation of tourist trains, all of which is conceived as a public service.

The building’s main body displays an outstanding collection of railway vehicles, made up of steam, electric and diesel locomotives, railcars and passenger coaches. The side pavilions house several exhibition rooms. One is devoted to railway infrastructure, highlighting the great difficulty involved in building railway lines in the Iberian Peninsula, due to its complicated relief, as well as the historical evolution of track elements and apparatuses. Another room features a representative collection of railway clocks. The visitors can likewise enjoy dynamic models with scale trains in the model train room. An important space in the old departures pavilion houses the documentary collections of the Historic Railway Archive and the Railway Library, two outstanding research centres.

Behind the station’s glass screen, there is an Algodor hydraulic interlock, an industrial heritage gem from the early 20th century. Likewise, outside, there is a “Garden Train circuit,” which is managed by the Madrid Railway Circle.

One of the Museum’s main activities that stands out is the famed “Strawberry Train”, which since 1984 runs between Madrid and Aranjuez, in spring and autumn, in historical vehicles. The permanent exhibition is supplemented by guided tours, with the collaboration of a group of CEATE senior-citizen volunteers; the EduTrain Programme, mainly aimed at schoolchildren; theatre plays; trips in a historical railcar organised by the AREMAF Association or the collaboration of different associations on special Museum days, such as the Madrid Friends of the Railway Association. Moreover, due to its singularity, the station is the ideal venue for organising events and markets, such as the model train fair, where, once a month, enthusiasts and collectors can find all kinds of scale trains.

The Strawberry Train