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Date: 07/06/03

Why plans for a fast rail link to Barcelona are so fraught

NOTHING better illustrates the history of acrimonious relations between Spain's two biggest cities, Madrid, the national capital, and Barcelona, that of Catalonia, than the state of the high-speed railway that lies between them. Or rather, that should lie between them.

High-speed trains - known in Spain as the AVE, like France's TGV - have linked Madrid southward to Seville since 1992. It was agreed that year to build a similar line north-eastward. Yet the rails have only just reached 465km (290 miles) from Madrid to the Catalan town of Lerida, thanks not least to wrangling among Spain's many tiers of authority and a political will that jolts between goods-train-slow and election-fuelled frantic. Barcelona's politicians also accuse Madrid of not pushing France hard enough to help link their AVE line to France's TGV network. Neither Madrid nor Paris, they say, is much interested in making life better for Barcelona.

Even on the limited Madrid-Lerida stretch, test runs have been less than silky-smooth. The line should have been working by last December. In fact, promotional tours began only in February - and were rapidly halted. Ordinary trains running at 200kph (125mph), not the promised 350kph, were used, security signals did not work, overhead cables snapped. At one point near Saragossa, which lies along the line, a huge subsidence in March left the rails suspended in mid-air. The risk of subsidence was well known, but engineering needs had been overtaken by electoral ones: the new AVE station at Saragossa was hastily inaugurated ahead of Spain's local elections, held on May 25th, without any high-speed trains in sight.

Yet Spanish dreams of a national network of AVE lines may be realised. The Seville line was initially derided as “the train to Africa” that no one would use. Cynics noted that Seville was the home town of the then prime minister, Felpe González, and recalled how Spain's very first railway ran from Madrid to Aranjuez, enabling the then Queen Isabel II to have fresh supplies of her favourite fruit, Aranjuez strawberries. Today, the Seville-Madrid AVE, with a travel time of less than 2 hours, is a roaring success. It swiftly won the war with the airlines - as the Barcelona line, promising 2 hours 40 minutes from end to end, surely will, say the grim-faced Catalan businessmen queuing up to fly by the shuttle to the capital. The Seville line carried 6m passengers last year. The trains are punctual, clean, highly profitable - and safer, to date, than the ordinary old lines: at least 21 people died in a horrific collision this week near Albacete, in the south-east.

The AVE has also breathed life into towns along its route. Today towns on the northern route, such as Guadalajara and Saragossa, capital of Aragon, and Lerida await the same effect; the Aragonese dream of making Saragossa a transport hub for all of northern Spain. The new €7.5 billion ($8.6 billion) line is due to open in 2004, but will it? The Catalans are still arguing with Madrid about the exact route and the halt at Barcelona's airport.

And the French link? It was thought that a new line, including 8km of tunnel under the Pyrenees, could join Barcelona to Perpignan, 160km away, by 2005. Now 2009 is the best hope. But a Franco-Spanish consortium has yet to reach agreement with the two governments on how to finance the €700m tunnel.

Article explores why plans for a fast rail link to Barcelona are so fraught.