National
Spanish high speed train, AVE, reaches Barcelona
By h.b.
Feb 20, 2008 - 7:35 AM

The first AVE high speed train to run from Madrid to Barcelona has run today and the service is proving to be the most popular line for RENFE Spanish railways yet with as many as 13,000 tickets being sold in a single day and 70,000 sold since tickets went on sale on February 14.

On the train today the travellers have paid between 163€ 50 for the most expensive seat to 40 € 80 for the cheapest internet offer. Nearly half of all sales so far have been on the net.
Trains now run daily between the two cities between 6am and 9pm every hour and the objective is to make the service even more frequent. Current journey time is 2 hours 38 minutes with refunds for late arrivals in line with AVE policy. That journey time will be reduced slightly later in the future when new safety measures are introduced.

Today’s start of the service comes after 12 years of construction beset by problems, not least the land subsidence during construction in Barcelona which led to long delays and cancelation of the cercanias commuter trains in the city for a
time.

Given those problems and the closeness to the election, today’s service has started without any ceremony or protocol from the Government.