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This is what Spain’s new low-cost (and brightly coloured) trains will look like

It won't be hard to spot the jazzy new trains zipping around the country from Easter 2020.

Published: 11 September 2019 09:42 CEST
This is what Spain's new low-cost (and brightly coloured) trains will look like
Photo: RENFE/Cinco Días

Spanish national rail service RENFE has decided to give its new rage of low-cost, high-speed AVE trains a very eye-catching coat of paint. 

Photos of the first models being tested (published by El País on Wednesday) show how the carriages will have a striking purple paint job, with a silver strip running along the top and the doors being given a bright, Easyjet-style orange finish.

The striking purple pigment is in fact RENFE’s official logo colour, although current high-speed AVE trains only sport a splash of this, having primarily a more sober white finish overall.

It remains to be seen whether the carriages’ interiors will be quite as loud (in colour that is) as the exteriors.

RENFE announced back in February 2018 that it was planning to launch this low-cost alternative to its fleet as a means of getting more Spaniards off the roads and onto the train tracks.

The initial route of the trains (dubbed EVAs rather than AVEs) will be from Madrid to Barcelona, with five trains going in each direction every day.

Spain’s public rail provider hopes to kick-start the new services during next year’s Semana Santa (Easter) holidays.

Authorities are aiming to transport over a million passengers in the first year, Spain's former minister of Publics Works Íñigo de la Serna announced back in 2018. 

Ticket prices will be at least 25 percent cheaper than the current service between Madrid and Barcelona and would operate not from Barcelona-Sants station in the centre of the Catalan capital but from a new hub in El Prat de Llobregat, a satellite town near the airport.

The current AVE service hurtles the 621km (386 miles) between Madrid and Barcelona in under three hours reaching a speed above 310 km/h.

The route was inaugurated in 2008 and competes with flights between the two cities  but tickets cost an average of €98 each way, althougher cheaper deals are available to savvy travellers who book in advance.

The new budget service is designed to attract a younger generation who generally make the journey by coach, explained the minister.

Spain by train: Everything you need to know about rail travel


 

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TRAVEL NEWS

Swedish government shelves plans for two fast train links

Sweden's government has called for a halt to planning to faster train links between Gothenburg and Borås and Jönköping and Hässleholm, in a move local politicians have called "a catastrophe".

Published: 23 December 2022 15:53 CET
Swedish government shelves plans for two fast train links

In an announcement slipped out just before Christmas Eve, the government said it had instructed the Swedish Transport Administration to stop all planning for the Borås to Gothenburg link, stop the ongoing work on linking Hässleholm and Lund. 

“The government wants investments made in the railway system to first and foremost make it easier for commuting and cargo traffic, because that promotes jobs and growth,” infrastructure minister Andreas Carlson said in a press release. “Our approach is for all investments in the railways that are made to be more cost effective than if the original plan for new trunk lines was followed.” 

Ulf Olsson, the Social Democrat mayor in Borås, told the TT newswire that the decision was “a catastrophe”. 

“We already have Sweden’s slowest railway, so it’s totally unrealistic to try to build on the existing railway,” he said. We are Sweden’s third biggest commuting region and have no functioning rail system, and to release this the day before Christmas Eve is pretty symptomatic.”

Per Tryding, the deputy chief executive for the Southern Sweden Chamber of Commerce, complained that the decision meant Skåne, Sweden’s most southerly county, would now have no major rail infrastructure projects. 

“Now the only big investment in Skåne which was in the plan is disappearing, and Skåne already lay far behind Gothenburg and Stockholm,” he said.

“This is going to cause real problems and one thing that is certain that it’s going to take a very long time, whatever they eventually decide. It’s extremely strange to want to first suspend everything and then do an analysis instead of doing it the other way around.”  

The government’s instructions to the transport agency will also mean that there will be no further planning on the so-called central parts of the new planned trunk lines, between Linköping and Borås and Hässleholm and Jönköping. 

Carlson said that the government was prioritising “the existing rail network, better road standards, and a build-out of charging infrastructure”.

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