Gerry Doherty, General Secretary of TSSA
SPAIN is going through something of a renaissance – cities from Madrid to Seville, Barcelona to Valencia, vie with each other over their contemporary architecture. Spain’s high-speed rail network is spear-heading this renaissance, bringing economic, social and cultural regeneration with it.
I visited Spain in June to investigate the benefits of the AVE – Alta Velocidad Español, which is High Speed Spain, and the Spanish word for bird – in terms of climate change, economic regeneration, efficiency and productivity and find out if the AVE really does work.
The short answer is that it works on every level. In Britain, a journey from London to Edinburgh can take four and a half hours and costs £252 standard return. The similar journey on the 186-mph high-speed train from Madrid to Barcelona takes two-and-a-half hours and costs £50.
Spain’s commitment to high-speed rail is formidable. It will invest £65 billion in the next three years, eventually providing a link between Seville in the South right up to the French border.
Compare that to our own Government’s timid approach to the future of rail travel. At the moment we have only 70 miles of high-speed rail between Folkestone and St Pancras International and ministers are refusing to take a decision on new high-speed lines before 2014 at the earliest.
In Spain, both sides of industry are firmly committed to the benefits of high-speed rail and how it has transformed the country’s rail network.
Our host, the transport section of CC.OO, Federation of Communication and Transport, packed in two days of top level meetings with everyone from RENFE – the rail operating company for Spain – ADIF, which runs the infrastructure, to the Spanish transport minister.
I was pleasantly surprised at the healthy industrial relations between the main players in Spain. Abelardo Carrillo, director general for high speed and long distance services at RENFE, told me he worked closely with the transport union, “because the union is an integral part of everything that we do”.
Imagine Richard Branson saying that! Or Ruth Kelly! I look forward to Iain Coucher at Network Rail taking TSSA’s views seriously now he has announced a study into high-speed rail.
It is amazing what the Spanish have achieved in less than three decades. In 1982 the Spanish Socialist Party decided the railway was inefficient, losing money and the best thing they could do was close it down. They closed down 3,000km of often strategic railway.
Carrillo described that decision as “absolutely mad” given the amount of food produced in Southern Spain for the rest of Europe.
Ten years later, in 1992, a new high-speed line was opened from Madrid to the South. Then, rail accounted for just 10 per cent of passengers between Seville and Madrid: that figure is now 80 per cent.
The Madrid to Seville service offers a full refund if the train is delayed by more than five minutes. On all high-speed services on 1 June 2008 there was 100 per cent punctuality. In April, punctuality was 99.4 per cent between Madrid and Barcelona, 98.7 per cent between Madrid and Seville.
Punctuality in the UK is now approaching 90 per cent and we hope to achieve 92 per cent in the next few years. And our long-distance trains are classed as arriving on time even if they are ten minutes late.
Francisco Martin, head of operations at ADIF, said planning with political will was crucial, all the way from drawing up the specifications to the actual building. The only place where private money has been used is the tunnel that will link Spain to France at high speed.
Luis de Santiago, director general of the railways for the Spanish government, said between now and 2012, out of the transport budget of £79.3 billion, £65.8 billion will go on the high-speed network. By 2020, £197 billion will have been invested. ADIF owns the main high-speed lines with mainly state funding; RENFE pays for access for each train.
“All this and it pays for itself,” said Carrillo, for, unlike the UK, the passengers aren’t paying for the capital investment.
I asked Antonio, who commutes from Madrid to Lleida (280 miles) every week, what he thought. “Fabulous,” he said. “It used to take me five hours, now it’s no more than two.”
Then there’s the cost. A similar journey between London and Newcastle would cost £249 walk-on fare. Antonio says while it’s twice as much as conventional rail, it costs him £43 and is very competitive compared with air travel.
There is no doubt that high speed rail is transforming public transport in Spain and bringing economic benefits to every region. The question must be why our Government is so reluctant to invest in it, given the environmental and economic benefits that it brings in it wake.
I welcome Network Rail’s study into high-speed rail but warn that political will is key and any model that gets the passenger to pay for the infrastructure investment makes rail of any kind, fast or slow, uncompetitive.
Would that our own government had the courage to break with out-dated dogma on our British railways and embrace the future.
Reader Comments:
Views expressed in submitted comments are that of the author, and not necessarily shared by Railnews.
The British problem is a cultural one within the Department of Transport and HM Treasury who between them have set out to destroy British railways over the last 60 years. Politicians are seemingly incapable of overcoming this.
Brian Eastwood, Petersburg VA, USA
Nice one, Gerry!. Now to show evryone concerned that if the Spanish can do it, so can we. It need public support or, simply "People Power" to get things goinf for a rail system, a renationalised one at that that will be the envy of many nations. We can and must do it.
Preston Glass, LUTON, United Kingdom