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El Tren de la Fresa or the Strawberry Train is an heritage train service operated on the railway that was inaugurated on 9 February 1851 between
Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
and
Aranjuez Aranjuez () is a city and municipality of Spain, part of the Community of Madrid. Located in the southern end of the region, the main urban nucleus lies on the left bank of the Tagus, a bit upstream of the discharge of the Jarama. , the munici ...
as the second railway line in mainland
Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
. The original purpose of the railway was to connect Spain's capital with the Royal Palace of Aranjuez. It was called the "Tren de la Fresa", the "Strawberry Train," as it originally went past vast fields of strawberries en route. ''Fresa con Nata'' (Strawberries with whipped cream) is a speciality produce of the town. In the early 1980s, the and
RENFE Renfe (, ), officially Renfe-Operadora, is Spain's national state-owned railway company. It was created in 2005 upon the split of the former Spanish National Railway Network (RENFE) into the Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias ( ...
recovered the route with a special service for tourists with heritage rolling stock starting on 27 May 1984. The excursions run from Spring (late April or early May) to late June or early July and then again from mid-September to mid-October. The train departs from the Railway Museum housed in the old Las Delicias station, arriving fifty minutes later in Aranjuez. The return journey departs from Aranjuez at 18:25, arriving in Madrid at 19:15. The train is usually pulled by a steam locomotive and includes 6 wooden coaches of nineteenth century vintage but for the 2013 season RENFE has declared that a conventional electric or diesel locomotive will be used to pull vintage carriages.Official site with service declaration in Spanish
/ref> The ticket includes a guided visit to the historic part of Aranjuez, the Royal palace and its gardens. Passengers also receive en route a plate of the famous local strawberries from hostesses dressed in nineteenth century period costumes.


References


25 years of the Strawberry Train by the Aranjuez Municipal archivist - in Spanish
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strawberry Train Heritage railways in Spain