40km/hour trains: Why much of Spain's rail network is not world class

Spain has a total 4,000km of high-speed rail track - the largest amount in the EU.

North to south, trains are fast and services are regular, especially those that run to and from the capital Madrid.

However, this isn't the reality all across country. Spain's red ferroviaria (rail network) can be very yin and yang, and the weaker half offers painfully slow trains and services that are few and far between, meaning that it's often easier and faster to drive.

Cross-country trains are also marred by delays and the lack of decent high speed lines.

For example, there are currently no high-speed connections between Madrid and Lisbon in Portugal and very few in the north of the country or in Extremadura. There is thankfully a plan in the works to create one between the Spanish and Portuguese capitals though.

The Madrid to Badajoz line used to be known as the worst rail line in the whole of Spain, taking around 9 hours to go only 480km. Part of this route was improved and thus made faster in 2022, but there is still not a complete high speed connection and it's still slow going.

It was only in 2023 that the northern region of Asturias finally received a high-speed AVE link, which had been 19 years in the making, delayed by 13 years and costing €4 billion. There are still problems in the rest of the region though. For example, Llanes to Oviedo takes over three hours by train but just one hour by car.

Other important northern cities such as Bilbao, San Sebastián and Santander aren’t even connected by the AVE yet. Between Bilbao and Santander for example, it's around 100km but it will take you more than three hours to travel there by train. This is compared to just one hour by car.

There is a new high-speed Basque Y Line in the works, which is set to be completed around the end of 2026 or 2027.

Night trains have also virtually been abolished in Spain. The service between Barcelona and Madrid stopped in 2015, while the service between Barcelona and Vigo was scrapped in 2019. Even the night service between Barcelona and Paris was halted in 2012, although there are plans to bring this back eventually.

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Why is there such as disparity throughout the country?

This is primarily because of the network design in the 19th century, which was centred around Madrid or lines going to and from the capital. This was known as the historical radial plan of 1851, which left much of the country without a network. Much of this original design remains to this day and there is still a preference for high speed trains to and from the Madrid.

The situation became even worse in the 1990s, when public investment was devoted almost entirely to the AVE - the high-speed network - instead of the Cercanías and medium distance trains across the country.

On top of this, only 70 percent of the lines are electrified and there are different types of tracks used for east to west lines, meaning that trains can't be connected to them easily without them having to be entirely redone.

Much of the rest of the country has also been left with incomplete infrastructure over the past decades, particularly in the north and west of the country, coupled with poor maintenance, and outdated diesel equipment.

The result today is that in certain parts of Spain trains have average speeds of 40 to 60 kilometres per hour.

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And it’s not just Spain's high-speed network that has these shortcomings.

Conventional commuter rail accounts for 90 percent of passenger traffic. In 2024, commuter rail carried 591 million passengers, compared to 39 million for the AVE. Yet, more preference and more funds are still dedicated to the high speed network.

The AIReF (Spanish National Railways) warns of the low socioeconomic profitability in many rail corridors and recommends rebalancing investment toward commuter rail and medium-distance rail instead of high speed.

The government has begun allocating more funds to the traditional network since 2023, but until electrification, and comprehensive maintenance are completed, Spain will remain divided between the areas that have the high tech AVE and the rest of the country. It may well take a long time before this imbalance is rectified.

While Spain's rail network has undeniably come a long way in recent decades, as is so often the case in this country, there are still huge contrasts between the most populous regions and those away from the coast and the big cities.