Madrid, Zaragoza and Alicante railway

The Madrid, Zaragoza and Alicante railway, known in Spanish as the Compania de los ferrocarriles de Madrid a Zaragoza y a Alicante, was a Spanish railway company founded in 1856 that became one of the most important companies in the Spanish railway sector, rivaled chiefly by the Compania de los Caminos de Hierro del Norte de Espana. The rivalry between the two companies stemmed from competing financial families, the Rothschilds and the Pereires, and the company rapidly expanded its concessions across Extremadura, New Castile, Andalusia and the Levante, building stations including Atocha in Madrid and Plaza de Armas in Seville. The company reached its operational peak around the turn of the twentieth century before entering crisis, and it ceased to exist when the Spanish state nationalized all broad gauge railways in 1941 following the Spanish Civil War.