I fail to see how education is benefiting, the AVE is eating up millions and losing money hands over fist, whilst education budgets are being cut year after year.

and making the envious to spend the money on their own AVE employing the same companies that are involved in this, bringing further prestige and income to Spain
just a shame that (no matter what the colour) the Spanish Govt seem incapable of making the maximum of this.

`

Johnny you didnt "suggest" you made it quite plain that Spain was totally wrong in what they are doing. Whilst accepting the spending of enough money to keep your grandchildren and greatgrandchildren in debt to pay for 112miles of UK track that will never make a profit. But thats OK, Spain is wrong and the UK is right.

Despite what you may think we are still "visitors" to this fair land, and shouldn't be so presumptious as to telling them how to run things. That is the old British Empire way of doing things.

Spain, withits cities 1/2mile above sea level, where the coastal strip is the cheapest place to run rail has decided to take the shortest route from AtoB, across mountains, which is expensive, but as others have pointed out, for a very large country, quite logical.
We do have a railway, both local and an AVE being built. And from it there are a number of new bridges, road improvements etc which will provide a benefit for many decades to come, things that would never have been without the AVE.

So who is right and who is wrong? UK or Spain ?
Perhaps we will see the end of the AVE project Johnny, it will be, in fact already is, a fine piece of engineering.
Something that should make people proud of being associated with it, even by just living in the country.
But please - do not start telling them what they should be doing when you won't do the same for your own country

rgds

I think we shall have to agree to disagree on this on Dom.

Visitors ?

All the expats who live here permanently, contribute in many different ways into the system and have no intention of going back to blighty ?

You make us all sound like a bunch of weekend Benidorm holidaymakers.

We've also probably contributed more than our fair whack to Spain via EU handouts even before coming here.



Must admit I was a bit sceptical of all this hype about wonderful "Spanish engineering" so out of curiosity I looked it up.

The trains/rolling stock are virtually all Siemens/German design and technology, though there was an early imput from the French TGV.

The parts are supplied by Bombadier and basically they are ONLY PUT TOGETHER IN SPAIN.

So much for Stevies flagship and "Spanish Engineering", though to be honest no great surprise to me, as I never imagined Spain to be at the forefront of this type of technology.

Thats much the same way Spain got into the modern car manufacturing business with copies made under licence from other EU manufacturers.

Anyway if they can sell them on and make a few bob then best of luck to them, but at the moment remember they are still mainly just contracts on pieces of paper and only time will tell if they have got their sums right for once and bring home the bacon.

Answering your irony, I will say that Talgo can design locomotives (many of these locomotives have pieces built and designed by Talgo) and CAF also can, in fact to build Metro. Your nuclear submarines are of U.S. technology

I remember you that in Spain we have brands of cars, and we have brands (Pegaso, Seat, Derbi, Bultaco, Ossa, Montesa Cota, etc) than if had invested in R & D rather than accepting the poisoned candy of the European Union in 1986, today we would have one of the most important motor industry in the world. The problem is the disastrous political class of this country, who has forgotten to invest in the country

Your demagoguery is disgusting. You disgust

Sorry if the facts upset you Lampy.

Of course you are right, but other than Seat who now rely mainly on German technology,(previously Italian), the rest are mostly has beens and never had much of a worldwide market anyway, apart from a few of the bikes, most of which I enjoyed riding at one time, but now unfortunately are rarely seen outside of the vintage class.

The fact that you accepted EU candy and happily devoured it, was Spains choice alone.
Now that your free Candy supply is drying up or now has to be paid for is certainly no fault of mine.

All I was doing was pointing out certain misconceptions that have been built up in quite a number of posts regarding the AVE.

The fact is that the AVE is NOT based on wonderful Spanish technology at all !


However as I said if Spain can cash in on other countries technology, then the best of luck to them as far as I'm concerned.

They could certainly use the dough right now.

The infrastructure and designs are Spanish whether you like it or not. It might be built on the basis on French and German tech but who cares, no technology is built in splendid isolation from the rest of the world

Have a look at the wind turbines or other types of renewable energy, or the architecture across the world that is built off the back of Spanish technology

OK, Calatrava is a bit of a bad example, because his works are notoriously badly designed for use because he only designs them to look nice, but to just denegrate Spanish technology as useless is just inflammatory

Not everything was built with EU grants either, most of it came from low interest loans from the Cajas, which is why they are in such trouble

Spain is not short on ideas or expertise, it is full of talented people. What Spain lacks is an inherent understanding of capitalism! The Spanish mentality is not a capatilist one, and this is where the whole model fails

Agree, I said in an earlier post that AVE was thanks to German and French technology, (and a bit of TALGO) but as you said, they basically bolt it all together. Impressive list of vehicles from Lampy, the only one of any note is Seat, which is a VW. (I've had four of them, been pleased with them). I loved the "if we had invested in" bit, I think we can all say that, hindsight is a wonderful thing. I&D investment in Spain is even lower nowadays, it's suffered some even more serious cuts lately. But the easy way for Spain was to accept all the handouts, and despite a cut in funding they are still net recipients, don't know what they have to moan about.

But what do you believe, <snip>? That me, and much more people of my country, are we richer since we belong to the UE? Just the opposite. I was rich before belonging to this shit of European Union, the money entered to my house for the windows. Before this shit of UE and of Eurus, you could to be independent without problems, and to buy you a car and a floor, much more accesible that now

This shit of UE, invented by Germany to sell its products without paying tariffs, nothing else. Were the socialists those that dismantled all our industrial, fishing, agricultural sectors, etc, to enter in this club, and has served for what? French that overturn our products in the frontier, problems with United Kingdom for Gibraltar, German that incumplen European protocols and do they benefit of the problem of the crisis in Spain, etc, etc, etc

Here we had an industry that was taken out with effort (I have known it) and with merit, first because here there was not plan Marshall, and second because it braked us a dictatorship. We could have invested in that industry (we still have something, fortunately and miraculously, having the political class that we have in Spain) instead of having dismantled it at the request of Germany and France for to enter in the European Union. It is evident that they didn't want a future economic opponent, only a client, and our disastrous ones political, instead of investing in the country, they made this way it
No, <snip>, Seat is not german, is spanish with german participation, what is different. Do you believe that Balay is German? No, it was Spanish, but it was bought by Bosch. And of this way, I would tell you more Spanish marks, missing or purchased by companies of France and Germany, mainly. And I want to remind to you, to Dick Dasterdly, and those who you are of the same herd, many brands now work together, because manufacturing in partnership with other brands is cheaper to start from 0 a project, and the best example is the Eurofighter. That project would be very expensive if one country did

Exemple: Hyundai does not have its own engines, are of another manufactur

Heh, I'm old enough to remember Brits using the same arguments against Japanese products. They were all inferior imitations of Brit or American designs, until of course they took the market...
As for trying to claim that Spanish lack rail engineering (if I've read the quoted claims correctly) this is of course nonsense. In fact Talgo have been introducing innovations for decades, which has helped particularly in the gauge-change mechanism now in use:
http://www.spaintechnology.com/icex/...9_-1_4,00.html
Talgo are still developing, for example the new AVE low-cost high speed train - they're pinning hopes on selling this in the American market, where at long last there seems to be movement in the high speed train market
http://www.eng.hsrail.ru/abouthsr/trains/talgo/
Of course, as CM rightly says, it's all down to being able to market and sell your products. The manufacturer CAF often partners with the Canadian company Bombardier, and in this way has sold train units to countries as diverse as Hong Kong, the US, and Turkey - and even the Heathrow Express.
(article in Spanish)
http://ave-renfe.edreams.es/ave-barc...internacional/

Ha,ha, as Ag says good to have you back Lampy,
However no need for the personal abuse and offensive remarks.

I always thought better of you than that and I have no intention of getting involved in slanging matches.

As I've already pointed out Spain got into its present predicament of its own free will, none of my doing, so I suggest you take your revenge on those who actually were responsible.

You seem to suggest that Spain would be better off had it stayed clear of the EU.
Difficult to say, but had it managed its own affairs a little more prudently and put the EU handouts to better use, then it certainly would not be in the sad situation it is at present

As I often like to remind people, the UK in pure numbers terms is in at least as bad of a situation as Spain, if not worse

At the moment, the markets are supporting the UK, but if they turn against them, like they have done for Spain, then the UK will be royally screwed

So dont get on your high horse just yet!

You do wonder how long the UK can keep paying out £20 billion+ a year just on housing benefits. At least the train investment in Spain provides fast reliable transport, and leads to exports abroad. What is the positive outcome of all that hb expenditure, apart from maintaining artificially high land and house prices? No wonder they are talking about £30 billion for HS2, if it ever gets off the ground.