Article: (Spain) Bullet train late, but on time for election

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Bullet train late, but on time for election

Bullet train late, but on time for election

February 21, 2008 - 12:30PM

The first bullet train from Madrid to Barcelona arrived today, eight minutes ahead of schedule but, critics say, 16 years late.

Barcelona was turned down as a high-speed destination in 1992, but the train did arrive in the Catalan capital in time for the Spanish government to take credit for the 350 km/h service ahead of next month's parliamentary election.

The new AVE train, built by Germany's Siemens, left Madrid's Atocha station two minutes late on its two hour 43 minute, 621 km journey.

That's about the equivalent of a four hour trip from Sydney to either Brisbane or Melbourne.

Though engineers finished Barcelona's bullet train two months late after hitting subsidence problems near the track just four km from the city's Sants station, the government can bask in the project's glory before the election on March 9.

However if the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was counting on a feel-good factor among Catalan voters to bolster its slim lead in opinion polls over the conservative opposition, it could be disappointed.

Catalan nationalist politicians have regularly criticised the delays, while the subsidence that delayed the track's completion also closed a local train route and caused hellish commutes for thousands living in and around Barcelona.

Infrastructure Minister Magdalena Alvarez accepted there could be electoral fallout in Catalonia.

"I think that as socialists all of us have to feel responsible for what happens in any part of our country and even more as a government, for good or bad, as in a marriage," she said.

"They have inaugurated it before (the elections) for electoral purposes, but it is something they should have done much, much sooner," said Nuria, a carer for disabled people, who was waiting to board the return train in Barcelona. "It could help the government but I have my doubts because people are very angry."

Former Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez chose his home town, Seville, as the destination for the first AVE which arrived in 1992, despite Barcelona hosting the Olympic Games that year.

The seven billion euro ($A11.23 billion) project took 12 years to complete as part of an ambitious project by the Socialist government to have more high-speed train lines than France, Japan or any other country by 2010.

Trade unionists protested on the station forecourt as the train arrived, calling for more investment in local services and "fewer trains for the rich".

Natalia de la Torre, was part of a team developing the safety systems on the train, was travelling as a tourist with her husband.

"This is a proud moment," she said, as the dawn train tore through Spain's rugged and empty interior at 300 km/hh. It will reach top speed later in the year.

And as for the train itself? It finished the 621 km journey eight minutes early.

Reuters