Madrid Metro Line 2
Between Las Rosas and Cuatro Caminos via Alcalá, Sol and San Bernardo: 20 stations with short platforms and four-car trains.
About Line 2
With 20 stations, Line 2 links the east of the city with Cuatro Caminos, running through the Salamanca, Retiro, Centro and Chamberí districts beneath Calle de Alcalá, San Bernardo and Bravo Murillo. Its extension along Avenida de Daroca gives residents of southern Ciudad Lineal and San Blas-Canillejas a direct route into the centre.
You can change to Line 1 at Sol and Cuatro Caminos, to Line 4 at Goya and San Bernardo, to Line 5 at VentasES and Ópera (where the Ramal, the Ópera–Príncipe Pío shuttle, also starts), to the circular line at Manuel Becerra and Cuatro Caminos, to Line 7 at Canal and to Line 9 at Príncipe de Vergara. Between Cuatro Caminos and La Elipa the platforms are 60 m long; from La Almudena to Las Rosas, 90 m.
Length: the sum of the distances between consecutive stations published by the Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid (CRTM) in its open data (network routes, updated on 29 May 2026), in one direction and counting every section of the line. It measures from the first station to the last, without the track that continues beyond the termini, so other published figures for the length of the line may be higher. Neither Metro de Madrid nor the CRTM publishes an official length for each line.
Stations on Line 2
20 stations, 9 of them with an interchange to another line (marked with a ring and the colours of the other lines).
History
The first section, opened on 14 June 1924, ran from Sol to Ventas beneath Calle de Alcalá. On 21 October 1925 the line continued along Calle del Arenal to Plaza de Isabel II and turned north under San Bernardo to Quevedo; on 27 December the branch to the North station (estación del Norte) opened, and on 10 September 1929 the line reached Cuatro Caminos via Bravo Murillo.
Two later extensions ended up in other lines: the Goya–Diego de León branch of 1932 passed to Line 4 in 1958, and the Ventas–Ciudad Lineal section became part of Line 5. To build Canal station, opened in 1998 with an interchange to Line 7, service between Cuatro Caminos and Quevedo was suspended from 5 July 1997 to 19 March 1998. Between 2000 and 2003 there were partial closures to install rigid catenary and slab track and to renew the trains.
On 16 February 2007 the line reached La Elipa along Avenida de Daroca, and on 16 March 2011 it gained four more stations as far as Las Rosas, beneath Calle de Arriaga, Plaza de Alsacia, Avenida de Guadalajara and Paseo de Ginebra. From 25 January to 30 May 2019 the Retiro–Sol section was closed because of an incident caused by the building works at the Centro Canalejas.
Hours and frequency
The line keeps short intervals in the afternoon too: Monday to Friday a train runs every 3 to 4 minutes from 7:30 to 9:30 and again from 14:00 to 20:00, and every 4 or 5 minutes in between. On Saturday afternoons, from 16:00, it also drops to 3 or 4 minutes; on Sundays and public holidays it varies between 4 and 5 minutes from 10:00 to 22:00. After midnight the interval is 15 minutes Sunday to Thursday; on Fridays it is 7 and then 10, and on Saturdays 6 to 7 and then 9.
The trains
The rolling stock is the CAF 3000 series, in four-car formations arranged M-R-S-M. Renewing the trains was one of the reasons for the partial closures from 2000 to 2003, together with the rigid catenary and the slab track. Since 8 August 2011 the whole line has run with ATO (automatic train operation).
Frequently asked questions
In September 2013 the phone company Vodafone bought the naming rights to the line and to Sol station, which was then advertised as Vodafone Sol. The deal caused a lot of controversy among residents and lasted three years: the sponsorship ended on 1 June 2016.
Because of the works at CanalES. To build the new station, the section between Cuatro Caminos and Quevedo had to be closed from 5 July 1997 to 19 March 1998, and again from 11 August 1998 until September. During those months trains turned back at Quevedo, something that had not happened since 1929.