Spain overtakes France as Europe's high-speed rail leader

Spain will hurtle past France as Europe's high speed rail leader on Sunday when it opens a 6.6-billion-euro line from Madrid to Valencia, banking on a boost to the economy. The 438-kilometre (272-mile) route will slash travel time between the Spanish capital and the Mediterranean port of Valencia, Spain's third-biggest city, from four hours to just 90 minutes.
The project, built at a cost of 6.6 billion euros (8.8 billion dollars), brings Spain's high-speed rail network to 2,056 kilometres. It places Spain ahead of the 1,896 kilometres of high speed rail in France and 1,285 kilometres in Germany, home to Siemens, the world's largest manufacturer of high-speed trains. Spain's high-speed train service, known as Alta Velocidad Espanola (AVE), boasts trains with noses shaped like a duck-billed platypus moving at speeds of up to 300 kph (190 mph).
And it is set to grow further. Taking into account routes planned or under construction, Spain would be in second place globally with 5,525 kilometres of high speed rail tracks, behind China the world leader with 13,134 kilometres but ahead of pioneer Japan with 3,625 kilometres.
By 2020 Spain wants to have 90 percent of the population within 50 kilometres of a high-speed rail station. "The AVE is very expensive. But it is an investment that generates many jobs and constributes to stimulate the economy, which is good at a time of crisis," said the director general for travellers at state-owned rail network Renfe. The Spanish economy slumped into recession in late 2008 due to the collapse of a property bubble that has caused the unemployment rate to soar to 20 percent, the highest in the euro zone.
It posted zero percent economic growth in the third quarter. The new Madrid-Valencia line will create 136,000 jobs directly and indirectly, according to consulting firm Accenture. But with a population of 47 million people, Spain has fewer potential passengers than France and Spain for its high-speed trains. Spain's bet on high-speed rail is "the other face of the property bubble" which fuelled economic growth in Spain for over a decade before it burst, said Ramon Lopez de Lucio, a professor at the Architecture School of Madrid. "That a country like Spain has more kilometres of AVE than any other nation aside from China makes no sense," he said, arguing that the Spanish government was over investing in infrastructure.