AVE fast train network connects up to 12 more cities in Spain
Monday, December 1, 2014 @ 11:55 PM
A FURTHER 12 cities in Spain will be linked up to the high-speed AVE rail network over the course of 2015.
Castellón on the east coast, Murcia in the south-east, Granada and Cádiz at either end of the southern region of Andalucía, Burgos, León, Zamora and Palencia in the centre-north region of Castilla y León, Vigo in the far north-western region of Galicia, and Cáceres, Mérida and Badajoz in the land-locked western region of Extremadura will join the fast train system next year, although as yet, rail board ADIF has not confirmed exactly when this will happen.
As a result of the financial crisis, the initial investment of 29 billion euros planned has gone down to five billion, meaning the bare minimum of works – connecting the cities to the high-speed network – has become priority, with other modernisation and improvement works having to be shelved.
So far this year, the fast AVE train system has increased to include the Albacete-Alicante line and the Barcelona-French border track, but next year will see an upsurge with sections of track currently unconnected being opened between Zamora, Vigo and Ourense in Galicia, across the coast through Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country, and cutting the distance between the Asturias cities of Gijón and Oviedo to Madrid by an hour and 25 minutes.
Trips to Madrid from the three Basque cities of Bilbao, Vitoria-Gasteiz and San Sebastián-Donostia – the provincial capitals of Vizcaya, Álava and Guipúzcoa respectively – will be reduced by 36 minutes.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com