European Railroad Discussion > Ave first class trip

Rode the AVE from Barcelona to Madrid today at 12:50. Very impressive train. 30 minutes after departure they served us a hot lunch of chicken and veggies; roll; salad; wine; dessert cake. Served airline style. Polite helpful attendants in the two first class cars.
Meanwhile the railroad was super. We had to be going 250 kmh? Smooth ride. We crossed several times from one main to the other at about 80 mph.
Spain has much to be proud of with train service.

Posted from iPhone

I think 300kph, which is 186mph.

Glad to hear that 300 kph is their top speed. We did that on the TGV south of Lyon. 230 kph on DB south of Fulda. Public money well spent.

Posted from iPhone

Rode the RENFE in April from Madrid to Sevilla and then from Sevilla to Barcelona on the morning through train. Lastly caught a Barcelona to Lyon high speed, getting off in Montpelier for Nice. Agree, RENFE is a class act and of course the standard gauge tracks are relatively new and provided a very smooth ride even at 300KM. Rode most of the western European high speed trains in May and Spain was as good or better than the rest.

Mexrail

cricketer8for9 Wrote:
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> I think 300kph, which is 186mph.

Madrid to Barcelona is 310 kph (192 mph)

The Madrid - Barcelona AVEs have LED speed indicators in the cars.

Dave

2 Years ago I rode Ronda (Spanish gauge) to Cordoba (standard gauge). That train went through the gauge changer at Antequerra (spelling may be off) which was an interesting process. I'm not sure I had realised previously that the technology permitted the use of the AVE lines - I'd always thought of it in terms of the old French/Spanish border crossing "normal speed" trains.