Madrid's first railway station opened on this site on February 9, 1851 as Estación de Mediodía. After a large fire, the MZA company rebuilt it, and it reopened in 1892. Alberto de Palacio Elissague designed the rebuilding in a style the article calls wrought iron renewal, working with Gustave Eiffel.
The steel and glass shed roof spans between two brick flanking buildings. The article gives its height as about 89 feet (27 m) and its length as 515 feet (157 m). Rafael Moneo led a remodeling begun in 1985 and designed the modern terminal on adjacent land. Since 1992 the old building has been a concourse with shops, cafés and a nightclub, around a tropical garden of 43,000 square feet (4,000 m²).
The station was renamed Puerta de Atocha–Almudena Grandes in November 2022. In June 2023 the government approved a 500 million euro expansion with a new four-track underground station. The infobox gives 110 million passengers in 2017.
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