I think so too. But that is one of life's enduring mysteries to me - why can Spanish people be so quiet on trains, talking in hushed voices, when they seem to like to make as much noise as possible everywhere else?

Just goes to show they can do it if they try.

I thought you were going to suggest they move them on goods trains, thanks to AVE, they haven't got many of those, goods are mainly moved by road nowadays.
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My comments in this thread relate to the AVE not other train services. I have no problem with Spanish rail other than the money being spent on the AVE would be better spent, in my opinion, on expanding/improving regional/local services.

I have just returned from Oliva and for the first time noticed the effects of the recession. There were long queues at the farmacias as the chemists had not been paid for the drugs by the state. Try asking those who require medications and were queuing what they think of the money being spent on the AVE.

So true.

Read this a couple of days ago, it's Málaga, but It's probably the same elsewhere. Basically it's about people like dentists, farmacias, notarios, architects etc suffering the crisis, something unthinkable a few years ago. As you say, queues at the farmacias, and they blame this on the fact their workload has doubled due to the copago thingy and that they have had to lay off staff. One is asking permission to stay open Sundays and holidays, dentist accepting payment by monthly installments. Others are deferring payment to their drug suppliers as they simply can't pay them, others are closing. And now the pensioners will lose their €253 bonus in January. It's belt tightening time all around. Apart from the AVE!
http://www.diariosur.es/v/20121125/m...-20121125.html

I wonder where Aggy & co think countries earn their money from?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haramai...d_Rail_Project

Current high speed projects that Spanish firms are bidding for, include the US, Russia, Brazil, India and Israel. Now they may not win those contracts (fairly sure that Israel and Brazil are unlikely) but they are in the market. It's just a shame that the UK (which invented rail travel remember) has neglected its industry to such an extent that it can no longer bid for the big contracts. Still, keep on paying the 20 billion+ on housing benefit, hey. At the same time sneer at Spanish trains as being a waste of money.

Well, most of them arrive on the many commercial ports Spain have. Obviously they need to travel by road from there

I have spent a lot of time driving around the Spanish motorways and there are not as many lorries as I've been stuck behind in the UK, or even in Italy where outside of Rome the 2 lane motorway was jammed packed, with more lorries than cars

Maybe it helps that Spain consumes a lot of local produce. I know that in the 3 places we've lived, almost all our fruit, vegetables and meat have come from within 100km of where we've lived. You can buy goods from far away but it is very easy to find good local produce

Stevie, I sometimes find it hard to take you seriously.

You consider it more important to blow money on a prestige train sevice that will never pay for itself than to keep folk from being thrown on the streets and having no roofs over their heads.

As for overseas contracts,there is no guarantee they will make anything at all, until such time as they've all been paid for and the final reckoning has been done.
In fact if they haven't got their sums right as is obviously common practice in Spain, they may even end up losing a shedfull of money on that as well.

You must live in a fantasy world of your own completely surrounded by trains and nothing else matters,...oh of course apart from the tapas bars in Madrid.

Hell, you think it's bad there ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19682049

"A City with no Medicine"

but they do have an F1 circuit that will see no more F1 races.

a huge Americas Cup infrastucture that will see no more America Cups.

An new airport up the road thats never seen an aeroplane.

An Opera House costing 400million plus 40million a year to run that sees a mere 15 performances per annum.

and most important of all by far,... they have Stevies new train service.


Pharmacies here have been running out of medicines and money for many months, the debts are phenomenal, borrowing money of the govt,who in turn are borrowing it of the Germans, just where their hairbrained train scheme first began.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Instead of spending money they don't have on German designed trains they should get themselves up to Germany for a few basic lessons in economics.

....but no,not even that.
Their latest tactic according to the BBC link is to try shooting the messenger !

They certainly should, or even to France. Others countries worked out that the only way a high speed train could ever be profitable was to ensure that they could fill them. This meant building a few lines on the most profitable routes, not putting them to every little town where 6 people a day were likely to use it, or there are more azafatas than paying customers. Not surprisingly the German model works. I had to laugh at Lampy bemoaning their entry into the EU, for years it was the biggest recipient of cash, it has had obscene amounts of money thrown at it, it's still a net recipient, but they have pretty much wasted the lot. SS can't see it, but the Spanish themselves can, they don't have any problems in slating Spain for all it's "despilfarros".
http://chemtrailsevilla.wordpress.co...farro-espanol/

Poor Aggy, so jealous of Spain's train network he has to pollute this thread. Maybe by 2030 the UK will start to enter the 21st century?
But hey, easy enough for me to keep a bookmark and show again the export contracts Spain have recently won in the last year..I'll leave googling up and quoting 2009 websites (the freight one - wondered why he didn't post the link ) to Aggy...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/loca...land-train-job
http://www.thecorner.eu/2012/04/spai...pply-contract/
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/s...-contract.html
http://www.track2infra.com/indian-ra...nfe-operadora/

but that applies to the UK !

AVE is a snowball that can be slowed but not stopped.

And like the UK, if they gave all that money to the NHS, Schools etc, they would only squander it.

The answer is getting the value for money out of the money you have - in that impolite American speak
Get More Bang For Your Buck.

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Under preesent circumstances the new UK train scheme is almost as stupid as the AVE.
The last Socialist govt didn't have a clue about finance,economics or value for money,pretty well par for the course with Socialist govts, just as in Spain.
Up to now the present govt is still struggling to sort out the mess and are sensibly putting a cap on housing benefits.

However to prioritise prestige new trains and other brainless schemes before medicine supplies and homeless people being thrown on the streets as in Spain, is just crazy.

Agree, and like the AVE it will cost a stupid amount of money and end up benefiting very few, but we'll all be paying for it.

well at least the AVE is already planned, and it is "writ in stone" just dependent on the release of money, which is why the snowball has been slowed but not stopped.
the UK has no need of such a system which isnt even near the chalkboard letalone the stone.

as to the why's and wherefores of medical supplies - well, having just paid 10% of the list price for my meds there is room for improvement in self financing - the UK charges £7.65 per line item whilst I have just paid as little as €0.38. OK if in the UK mine would now be free, as it is for a large number of people but there are still quite a few millions who are paying the full whack.

homeless people is a problem that Spain has had to live with, the banks have to realise it is better to have someone living there than lying derelict. The UK has its Social Housing network. But at the end of the day if you didn't get your interest on the money deposited with the bank because they had become social landlords you would also be up in arms.

its all a mess, there are many things to sort out, but stop the major contracts and there will be more people out of work, unable to pay their mortgages and becoming homeless

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