HuffPo reports that the US may follow the example set by Spain with High Speed Rail. “President Barack Obama has cited Spain, France and Japan as countries with systems worth emulating.” More from la Dama Gris, a.k.a., the NY Times…
Alberto Estevez/European Pressphoto Agency
A high-speed train arriving in Barcelona. Spain’s high-speed rail network now stretches from Malaga on the south coast to Barcelona in the northeast.
Spain opened its first Alta Velocidad Española, or AVE, high-speed train route in 1992, between Madrid and Seville. The network has grown to nearly 2,000 kilometers and stretches from Malaga on the south coast to Barcelona, which is north and east.
Supporters say the AVE has begun to transform the country, binding remote and sometimes restive regions to Madrid and leading traditionally home bound Spaniards to move around for work or leisure.
“Spaniards have rediscovered the train,” said Iñaki Barrón de Angoiti, director of high-speed rail at the International Union of Railways in Paris. “The AVE has changed the way people live, the way they do business. Spaniards don’t move around a lot, but the AVE is even changing that.”
Such is the train’s allure that politicians of different stripes have made extravagant promises to lace the country with a sprawling network. Under a plan devised by Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain will have 10,000 kilometers (more than 6,200 miles) of high-speed track by 2020….
As has happened elsewhere, the high-speed train is stealing passengers from the airlines: The 2.5-hour route between Madrid and Seville handles about 89 percent of railway and air traffic between the cities, according to Renfe, the state railway operator. In its first year, the Madrid-Barcelona route lured nearly half the five million passengers who would normally fly between the cities, Renfe said.
Supporters say such statistics bolster the train’s green credentials: The International Union of Railways says a high-speed train can carry eight times as many passengers as an airplane over a given distance, using the same amount of energy and emitting a quarter of the carbon dioxide for each passenger.
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As Spain extends its high speed rail system, there is increasing competition for location of a terminal due to impact upon real estate value.
About 90 per cent of people that travel between Paris and London go by Eurostar, the high-speed rail between the two cities.
After reading an article in the Age as to how trains beat planes in terms of speed for inter-city routes when the distance is less than 1500 km, the Big Gav laments, “Will we ever see a high speed train between Sydney and Melbourne via Canberra?”