(The following appeared at EarthTimes.org on February 20.)
MADRID — Spain on Wednesday launched a new high-speed rail line which cuts the travel time from Madrid to Barcelona by two hours to 2.38 hours. The Ave S103 train, which began operating four years behind schedule, is part of a 15-year project to turn Spain into a world leader in high-speed trains, giving it one of the world’s most extensive such networks.
Soaring across 630 kilometres of Spanish territory at up to 300 kilometres per hour, the first Ave arrived in Barcelona at 8.38 am (0738 GMT), five minutes ahead of schedule.
The challenge now is to extend the line to France through Gerona, said Jose Salgueiro, president of the rail company Renfe.
The new Ave line, which cost about 8 billion euros (12 billion dollars), was one of the most expensive and longest-running infrastructure projects in Spain.
Barcelona had hoped to inaugurate an Ave line already in 1992, when the Olympic Games were staged in Spain’s second-largest city.
But the government of then prime minister Felipe Gonzalez, who was from the southern region of Andalusia, decided that the country’s first high-speed train would travel from Madrid to the Andalusian city of Seville, which hosted the 1992 World Expo.
The construction of the line from Madrid to Barcelona began in 1996, linking the capital with Lerida in 2003 and with Tarragona in 2006.
The project suffered numerous delays over cracks in tunnels, underground holes that were discovered beneath already built tracks, problems with signal systems, and disputes over which route the new train would take into the city of Barcelona.
In 2007, construction work of the high-speed line damaged a tunnel used by several local rail lines, forcing some 160,000 commuters to use bus services for several weeks.
Infrastructure Minister Magdalena Alvarez became the most criticized member in the cabinet of Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who nevertheless allowed her to keep her job, deeming a reshuffle unwise shortly before the March 9 elections.
When the high-speed train built by the German company Siemens finally entered the Sants station in Barcelona on Wednesday, it was a “historic moment,” Salgueiro rejoiced.
The new Ave is expected to pose a challenge to air shuttles between Madrid and Barcelona, one of the busiest air routes in the world.
Until now, more than 90 per cent of passengers have preferred flying, driving or taking the bus to travelling by train between Spain’s two top cities.
Spain’s infrastructure plan for 2005-2050 foresees investments worth almost 83.5 billion euros in the rail network.
The high-speed network already links 19 cities. By 2020, 90 per cent of the Spanish population will live at less than 50 kilometres from an Ave station, if all goes as planned.
The high-speed train is seen as comfortable, reliable and less polluting than the aeroplane, but not everyone is happy.
Spanish environmentalists say slower trains are better for the environment, while others criticize the cost of building high-speed lines and the price of Ave tickets, which ranges from 40 to 245 euros for a one-way trip between Madrid and Barcelona.
There is also a dispute over how the Ave line leading to Paris should be traced, with many Barcelona residents fearing that a planned line running near the Sagrada Familia church would damage the Barcelona landmark designed by legendary architect Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926).
A small group of demonstrators from the Socialist trade union CGT awaited the Ave in Barcelona, demanding more local and regional instead of high-speed trains.