Page 54 - Vía Libre Special - 25 Years of Spanish High Speed Rail

SPECIAL

years of Spanish high speed rail

High speed

rolling stock

I In twenty-five years of high speed

operation in Spain a great variety of high
In Spain there is a great variety of high speed tra-
ins: Spanish, French or German technology; articula-
ted and not articulated, concentrated or distributed
traction, fixed or variable gauge, mono-voltage or speed trains have been developed by
various manufacturers, differentiated by
bi-voltage, and even hybrid trains that can run on
unelectrified sections. their speed, capacity, gauge, and power
The services they provide is what drives this
diversity. There are trains that run exclusively on high supply voltage, depending on the services
speed lines (on long distance and regional routes) they provide.
and trains that also run on sections of the conven-
tional network.
Power supply voltages (25,000 V AC compa-
red to the 3,000 V DC on the conventional network), nes, whether long distance or regional Lanzadera
signalling systems (LZB, ERTMS/ETCS, ASFA), and the trains.
various technologies used, define two clearly diffe- The second generation is more diverse, com-
rentiated phases of implantation, one starting in 1992 prising both fixed and variable gauge trains, incorpo-
and the other in 2003, giving rise to two generations rating improvements in traction and power electro-
of trains. nics driven by technological evolution.
The first generation comprises trains acquired This second generation of trains appeared for
for the Madrid to Seville line, the Series 100, directly the first time after the calls for tenders in 2000 to
derived from the TGV Atlantique. These trains, desig- supply material for the Madrid-Barcelona high speed
ned and manufactured by Alstom, were used in Spain line. These were followed by more tenders in 2004,
for all services running exclusively on high speed li- the contracts of which were renegotiated in 2005.

54 Vía Libre • Special 25th Anniversary of the AVE Edition