The first high-speed train that will connect Paris and Barcelona will make its debut on December 15th: from that day on, it will take just over 6 hours to connect two of the main cities of Western Europe, separated by over a thousand kilometers in line. air.
The news was announced by the Spanish Minister of Transport, Ana Pastor, in an interview with Catalan radio Rac1. The new line, which in reality is not yet entirely high-speed, will make it possible to gain about half an hour compared to the 6h40 needed now, despite a change in Figueras without which the connection will still be perfectible and should decrease in 2014 to around 5 hours and half.
According to a spokesman for Renfe, to drop below six hours it will be more necessary for France to upgrade the railway section between Perpignan and Nimes, in the south of the country not far from the border with Catalonia, to high speed. But that the lack is on the French side is not exactly a surprise: Spain already in 2010 surpassed the transalpines for the number of kilometers of high-speed lines installed, which now make Madrid the first country in Europe and the second in the world. All while in Italy there are just 700 kilometers of effective high-speed network.
Initially, the French railway company SNCF and the Spanish counterpart Renfe communicated, the route will be covered by two round trips per day.
