surely once the infrastructure i.e. the lines, is completed it will last for decades, along with the new stations which may well be still around in a century or so, as are the existing stations.

and once that infrastructure is completed then it will be available for goods/freight use as well. that is why there is such a kerfuffle about whether the AVE/South Coast Freight should take the coastal route or cut across from Murcia/Valencia thru Northern Almeria to join up with the Antequerra-Granada leg. IIRC the EU who are the prime funders in this have said it will be the latter.

please think long term rather than short term, it will still be there after we are long gone.
rgds

According to that argument, you cannot deride the planned HS2 in the UK as your earlier post.

this is a forum, so I can do what I like

but the difference is that HS2 is PLANNED

AVE is with us NOW - and it is best if it was finished rather than just left to rot.

There used to be a time when nations Vanity Projects were larger and larger sailing ships - some of the largest (and most cumbersome) were Spanish.
Then it became steam ships, then Battleships with everyone falling over themselves to build the next biggest Dreadnought.
Then it became Aircraft Carriers, although naming them after expresidents seems a bit of spoil
Then Stealth Aircraft, if you can find one that is

Now it is super-fast trains.

Where will it all stop??

I suspect it's more a case of Spanish funcionarios not having a clue how to price to market (like Spanish banks when it comes to selling property). I read recently that now they have lowered prices the corresponding increase in volumes has been sufficient to make lines profitable.

Edit: I should have written the corresponding increase in volumes has been sufficient increase overall income (not necessarily profitable).

The smallest village in Spain to have the AVE stop there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uICRiIubaI
Two people get off, as Jordi says, there are more stewardesses than passengers!

The price of tickets used to be much more expensive, but they have recently introduced a variable pricing system much loved and used by the British rail network and Easyjet amongst others

So it is possible to pick up cheap tickets in advance, but if you buy a ticket for a busy train close to the date then the price will be much more expensive. As we know, this is a tried and tested pricing system and is very positive for everybody

If the AVE is profitable on a correct accounting basis I shall eat my hat!

By the way I do not necessarily expect public services to be profitable, but I would expect public money to be spent wisely.

According to this, only 4 routes cover their operating costs and lines like Málaga-María Zambrano at 107% make hardly any money. As the report says, the rest are hemorrhaging money. Others like the AVE Gallego barely cover 20% of the costs. 94% of the lines are losing money. As Pastor says, there are loads of people that have never been on the AVE, and even with the cheaper prices, loads that never will either. I have read of figures ranging from €120,000 to €180,000 per kilometre per year simply for maintenance of the line.
http://www.vozpopuli.com/actualidad/...sin-subvencion

And who decides that, you?

The AVE in many ways has been a huge success. Yes it would have been better if it just connected the main cities, but then again we are waiting with baited breath for the AVE to get to Asturias, as soon as it does then we will use it all the time to get to Madrid and the South of Spain, it is so much more comfortable than travelling by car, and there are so few flights up here.

Just think about Eurotunnel, it is making an annual profit now, 20 years after it was built, and only after billions of debt were wiped off its books. However, it has had a very positive impact. Not everything can be measured in numbers.

Yes, I edited my reply as I wrote yours (see above)

well don't look at the cockeyed British system to get profitability either.
you win a tender knowing that you will be subsidised by the British taxpayer.

in theory it would be better to go back to the bad old days of BR, but then it couldn't make a profit either.
if it wasn't such a hot potatoe then the NHS should be sold off () but it is also the most inefficient organisation in the UK, with Trust's in charge of Trust's, hospitals that are unable to pay their PFI rent due to the "off the books" method of accounting Gordon Brown came up with.

considering the way public accounting is carried out you should make sure you get a new hat - sweat doesn't taste very good when you get to the chewy bits.

there are loads of people in the UK who have never been on a train, and most definitely will never travel on HS2.

Absolutely farcical really, if it wasn't such a disaster of epic proportions.

http://www.intereconomia.com/noticia...jeros-20110627

Three major cities between them pulling in 9 punters a day !

Hardly a good long term investment either, as some would suggest, with multi billion euro lines and stations, some already abandoned and likely to be left to rot and inevitably many more to follow.

For those again desperately seeking a few crumbs of comfort by comparing it to the UK, that argument is farcical also.

The present UK system is based on lines and routes that were already in existence and only needed upgrading, (precisely what Spain should have done), and in any event comfortably pulls in more than enough punters to justify itself.

Wether justifiable or not, the proposed new UK system will NOT be stopping off at remote villages in the middle of nowhere for virtually zilch customers and is pretty well guaranteed good usage numbers.

What I can't get my head around is who on earth was dumb enough to conceive the current and proposed AVE system in the first place ?

All the expert opinion I have come across seems unanimous that it was never viable or justifiable in the first instance !

The politicians who stated that no Spaniard would be less than thirty kms from the AVE or said they will always be in walking distance of it, must be totally ignorant of their own country way beyond belief and makes me wonder if they even know it at all or have ever been far beyond their cosy offices in the city centres.

Yet on they continue, pouring endless billions they don't even have into a bottomless money pit

As was mentioned by one of the economic advisers, general Spanish Govt policy always seems to be to build first and think later.

Widespread evidence of that can be seen throughout the whole country, not only with the AVE, but the miles of desecrated coastline which could have been developed so much better, as well as the more recent White Elephants too numerous and monstrous to list.

I heard a PP politician on the radio yesterday who said people should concentrate on the amount of money the PSOE have wasted, rather than the amount that PP have stolen (Not his exact words, but I could read between the lines)

Would make a nice campaign message

"No matter how much we steal, it will never be as much as the other party waste through their incompetance"

On the other hand, these projects would have been privatised under PP and would have ended up going bankrupt leaving all the services as unusable and with the banks, cajas and untimately tax payers picking up the bill. So an even worse end result.

Just look at the unused Madrid toll roads that were commissioned under Aznar for evidence

where is the evidence that PP stole money ??
if it is Barcenas files then all that shows is they received officially donated monies as additional payments from the party.
their tax arrangements are another matter

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