Page 72 - Vía Libre Special - 25 Years of Spanish High Speed Rail

SPECIAL

years of Spanish high speed rail

Euromed: twenty years of

transforming the passenger service

on the conventional network

June 16 will see the 20th anniversary of

the launch of the Euromed service. This
service represented a qualitative leap in

the supply of long distance travel on the

conventional network and, in particular,
on the Mediterranean corridor between

Barcelona, Valencia and Alicante. At the

same time it opened up new markets
and business lines, and it was a driver of

cultural transformation.
T

The management of Euromed was based on the
AVE service that had entered into operation five
years previously between Madrid and Seville. Renfe’s
directors responsible for that transformation were
the same ones who brought a new way of providing
service to the Mediterranean corridor.
With the experience and hindsight of their
mistakes and successes they considered that in
order to overcome the constraints of a shared
infrastructure and journey times similar to road travel, In September 1998 another train to Alicante was
they would need to strive for excellence of service. added, and one more in June 2000.
They needed to exceed the travel expectations of
their customers; in short, they needed to surprise.
To this end they defined a new set of send those high performance trains to cover the
attributes that the new product would need, aside Barcelona-Tarragona-Castellón-Valencia- Alicante
from the type of rolling stock to be employed. These route.
attributes were frequency, journey time, style of
service, brand, and human resources, although it The key to success
has to be said that to a certain extent the Euromed
came to be identified with the six self-propelled Few would dispute the fact that the key
trainsets manufactured by Alstom (part of the 24 to the success of the Euromed were its people,
that were built for the high speed service between specifically the collaborative and cohesive work of a
Madrid and Seville). multidisciplinary team formed by people from Renfe
In fact it was the decision to boost the traffic and Wagons Lits, with the cooperation of Alstom.
on the Mediterranean corridor that led Renfe to The enthusiasm, initiative, friendliness,

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