High-Speed Train

The Madrid to Barcelona high-speed rail line opened in early 2008, and traverses 390 miles in only two hours and 38 minutes. In its first year, the line captured more than 50 percent of the travel between the country’s two major economic centers, and significantly reduced the number of daily flights between the cities. Since then, Spain’s rail authority has continued expanding the network, in 2010 completing the connection between Madrid and the coastal city of Valencia.

Joaquin Jiménez, the director of international relations for Spain’s rail administration (the Spanish acronym is ADIF), highlights the fact that Spain has more than 900 miles of high-speed rail under construction or in the planning process. “Developing high-speed rail remains a main objective in Spain,” says Jiménez.

According to Michael Clausecker, director of UNIFE (Association of the European Rail Industry), Spain has the most modern fleet of high-speed trains in Europe. The country has also been the first to have its high-speed network fully equipped with the latest signaling system, ERTMS, which will even­tually become the unique signaling system for the entire European high-speed system and its international rail corridors, facilitating greater interoperability among different countries.

Spain and France are linking their two countries with a new high-speed line between Perpignan and Barcelona, which will dramatically reduce cross-border travel time. The engineering company Sener was involved in designing this line; despite the relatively short distance, the firm encountered a number of complications, among which were reconciling the two different control systems and two different electrification standards.

“We are living in a very important moment in the development of railways,” says Ignacio Barron, director of the high-speed department of the International Union of Railways. He compares today’s high-speed expansion to the original expansion of rail in the second half of the1800s: “These developments are being prepared not only for us today; in fact we are preparing transportation for our children.”

As high-speed trains become more common around the world, the companies that sell those trains continue to do research to improve them, says Barron: They’re focusing on minimizing noise, lowering the cost of maintenance, and reducing the maximum load to make trains lighter, more aerodynamic, and more energy efficient.

These goals also motivate Spain’s train manufacturing company CAF, where engineers at its three-story R&D center devote themselves to rail innovations. CAF has developed trains that include a number of technological advances. They can switch between Spain’s wider track width and the usual European width; they’re increasingly light, contributing to energy savings; and they oper­ate with reduced vibrations and noise, reducing the impact on the people and ecosystems that the trains pass.

CAF’s experience with trains of all kinds has translated into international success. CAF is supplying metro, tram, light rail, commuter, and regional trains to cities and countries that include Edinburgh, Stockholm, Belgrade, Turkey, Houston, and Sao Paolo. CAF has focused particularly on developing electric trains for tramways that can run without overhead power lines, or catenaries. Instead, they created an onboard energy-storage system, with high-speed recharging and a method for capturing the energy generated during the braking process.

CAF’s new high-speed train, called Oaris, was designed collaboratively by CAF’s research center and Spanish universities and technology centers, who labored to create an advanced train body that is fast, light, energy efficient, comfortable, and customizable for client needs. It is fully interoperable across borders, bridg­ing differences of voltage, signaling systems, and track gauges.

Oaris is the CAF's new high-speed train. Source: CAF

High-Speed Train

The Madrid to Barcelona high-speed rail line opened in early 2008, and traverses 390 miles in only two hours and 38 minutes. In its first year, the line captured more than 50 percent of the travel between the country’s two major economic centers, and significantly reduced the number of daily flights between the cities. Since then, Spain’s rail authority has continued expanding the network, in 2010 completing the connection between Madrid and the coastal city of Valencia.

Joaquin Jiménez, the director of international relations for Spain’s rail administration (the Spanish acronym is ADIF), highlights the fact that Spain has more than 900 miles of high-speed rail under construction or in the planning process. “Developing high-speed rail remains a main objective in Spain,” says Jiménez.

According to Michael Clausecker, director of UNIFE (Association of the European Rail Industry), Spain has the most modern fleet of high-speed trains in Europe. The country has also been the first to have its high-speed network fully equipped with the latest signaling system, ERTMS, which will even­tually become the unique signaling system for the entire European high-speed system and its international rail corridors, facilitating greater interoperability among different countries.

Spain and France are linking their two countries with a new high-speed line between Perpignan and Barcelona, which will dramatically reduce cross-border travel time. The engineering company Sener was involved in designing this line; despite the relatively short distance, the firm encountered a number of complications, among which were reconciling the two different control systems and two different electrification standards.

“We are living in a very important moment in the development of railways,” says Ignacio Barron, director of the high-speed department of the International Union of Railways. He compares today’s high-speed expansion to the original expansion of rail in the second half of the1800s: “These developments are being prepared not only for us today; in fact we are preparing transportation for our children.”

As high-speed trains become more common around the world, the companies that sell those trains continue to do research to improve them, says Barron: They’re focusing on minimizing noise, lowering the cost of maintenance, and reducing the maximum load to make trains lighter, more aerodynamic, and more energy efficient.

These goals also motivate Spain’s train manufacturing company CAF, where engineers at its three-story R&D center devote themselves to rail innovations. CAF has developed trains that include a number of technological advances. They can switch between Spain’s wider track width and the usual European width; they’re increasingly light, contributing to energy savings; and they oper­ate with reduced vibrations and noise, reducing the impact on the people and ecosystems that the trains pass.

CAF’s experience with trains of all kinds has translated into international success. CAF is supplying metro, tram, light rail, commuter, and regional trains to cities and countries that include Edinburgh, Stockholm, Belgrade, Turkey, Houston, and Sao Paolo. CAF has focused particularly on developing electric trains for tramways that can run without overhead power lines, or catenaries. Instead, they created an onboard energy-storage system, with high-speed recharging and a method for capturing the energy generated during the braking process.

CAF’s new high-speed train, called Oaris, was designed collaboratively by CAF’s research center and Spanish universities and technology centers, who labored to create an advanced train body that is fast, light, energy efficient, comfortable, and customizable for client needs. It is fully interoperable across borders, bridg­ing differences of voltage, signaling systems, and track gauges.

Oaris is the CAF's new high-speed train. Source: CAF