rom the time the permanent station started operating until the years prior to the end of its railway activity, Delicias never stopped growing. As the years passed by, the installations that existed at its opening were joined by new buildings that were required for its correct functioning. Some installations were also modified and those no longer need demolished. At the same time, auxiliary elements were established, such as water supplies for locomotives, weighbridges, signal boxes, signals, etc, which completed the industrial landscape.

Both the new constructions and the transformation of the existing ones were the work of each of the railway companies that operated Delicias, and which left their mark on the configuration of the railway complex.

On April 8, 1880, shortly after the station was opened, the MZA company bought CRB and, therefore, the station. However, since MZA already had its own provisional station in Atocha, in December that same year it sold Delicias to the recently established Compañía de los Ferrocarriles de Madrid a Cáceres y Portugal (MCP). For years, both companies shared its use, until MZA finished its permanent base in Atocha and moved the traffic from its railway lines there in 1893.

During this shared period, construction work was carried out on the passenger building, including the new layout of the 1st-, 2nd- and 3rd-class waiting rooms and the reusage of the spare space as new offices, factories, consumer rooms, etc, which were necessary due to the increased number of agents from both companies.

Due to the growth of export and import freight traffic, and with a view to satisfying these needs, it was necessary to build a third covered loading bay and tracks around it; to establish an open-air loading bay for coal with a weighbridge and platforms; to erect an unloading building; stands; sheds… All of these installations were a notable upgrade to the railway complex.

Between 1906-1907, the departures pavilion lobby was renovated. Due to the inconveniences caused by the division of departures and arrivals into two different pavilions, and the large distance between their corresponding courtyards and the Paseo de las Delicias tramway stop, the company decided to bring both services together in what had been the departures lobby. The space that was freed up in the departures pavilion was used to extend the central offices. At that time, the station already had overhaul, movement and immobile material workshops. After a few years, the Delicias-Empalme siding was built, being located on the railway bypass for freight traffic.

An ambitious renovation project was drawn up in 1927 and authorised in 1929, by which time Compañía Nacional del Oeste de España (Oeste) was already in control. Although not all of it was approved or built, the following was carried out: the roundhouse for twenty-four locomotives with its swing bridge, engine shed, pavements for the access road and passenger courtyard, and, in the passenger building, the renovation of the lobby and construction of the central platform. Noteworthy was the enormous transformation of the lobby, since its diaphanous space was divided into three floors connected by an open-newel staircase; the ground floor was used as a lobby and the upper floors became offices and archives.

During the RENFE period, numerous projects were carried out. It is worth mentioning the opening up of an entryway in the façade of the passenger building, when the glass roof of the west side was moved there; the interior of the lobby was upgraded and the statistics offices were extended. Furthermore, new buildings were gradually erected: a garage for lorries from the vehicle fleet, a company store, a healthcare pavilion, buildings for preparing passenger cars, inspecting carriages and the headquarters of the 7th Railway Unit. In 1967, with the construction of RENFE’s Calculation Centre in the garden at the facility’s entrance, the station could no longer be seen from Paseo de las Delicias.

When Madrid-Delicias stopped operating, some installations were dismantled, others were put to a different use and many were demolished, as it happenened with the locomotive´s shed, built in the 1930s and demolished in the first 1980s.

Railway companies that own the Madrid-Delicias station. Source: Museo del Ferrocarril de Madrid