The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, has dropped the information bombshell: Spain “will go on the offensive in high speed“. And the first line to notice this offensive will be the busiest and most competitive in the country: the one linking Madrid and Barcelona.
The plan is ambitious, almost record-breaking. It seeks to raise the maximum speed of trains to 350 kilometers per hour. With this improvement, the government hopes to reduce travel time to “well under two hours,” a direct hit to the jugular of the air bridge.
“At 350 km per hour, nobody goes except the Chinese,” Puente assured at a breakfast briefing. With this move, Spain would rank as the second country in the world in commercial top speed, surpassing powers like Japan, whose bullet trains operate at 320 km/h.
Currently, although the line was designed with higher speeds in mind, trains run at a maximum of 300 km/h (or 310 km/h in very specific sections). The leap to 350 km/h is not just a matter of prestige; it is a logistical necessity.
More speed to fit more trains
The minister explained the reason for this acceleration. With rail liberalization and the entry of Ouigo and Iryo, the Madrid-Barcelona line is on the verge of saturation. To “generate capacity” and put more services, there are only two options: “either more rail”, that is, to build new tracks (a pharaonic work in cost and time), “or increase the speed”.
The Transport portfolio has opted for the latter. By increasing the speed, vehicles will “rotate more”. In short: if trains run faster, they complete the cycle sooner and leave the track free for the next one, allowing for increased frequencies and more seats.
When will “super” high speed become a reality?
Here comes the fine print: it will not be immediate. To reach 350 km/h safely, it is not enough to step on the accelerator. The track needs to be renewed. In fact, the reason why this was not done earlier, despite the fact that the line was inaugurated in 2008, is technical.
As Puente explained, past tests advised against exceeding 320 km/h due to the type of ballast (the stones under the tracks), which could cause damage. However, Adif developed in 2014 a patented sleeper (the piece that joins the rails) that reduces the aerodynamic load and allows reaching those speeds safely. Those are the sleepers that will be installed now.
The renewal process “starts now”, but it will be progressive, section by section. As a reference, the total renovation of the Madrid-Seville line has taken three years.
New accesses at La Sagrera
The improvement plan not only affects the main track, but also the accesses to the major cities, which are the current bottlenecks. In Madrid, a new high-speed station will be built in Parla to decongest Atocha and Chamartín.
In Barcelona, the focus is on the future La Sagrera node. Puente acknowledged that the current accesses have “a problem” in view of the increase in traffic that the Mediterranean Corridor will also entail. Therefore, the ministry plans “a new access” linked to the La Sagrera macro-station, which will allow “more access to the high speed without passing through Tarragona”, streamlining the entrances and exits of Barcelona.