Page 9 - Vía Libre Special - 25 Years of Spanish High Speed Rail

MAN
One of the platforms of Puerta de Atocha station
where you can see a Series 100 AVE composition in
the original AVE livery.

The passengers

The initial forecast for 1992 called for a
million and a half passengers, rising to 3,675,000 Power head of a Series 100 AVE
in 1993. Despite the initial scepticism surrounding at Ciudad Real station (April 1992).
high speed rail travel in Spain, these forecasts were
comfortably beaten.
one month before the line’s inauguration,
160,000 seat bookings had been taken for the six
months that the Seville Expo was to last. Receipts
from advance sales up to the date of the first
commercial service averaged between eleven and
twelve million pesetas a day. Prices ranged from
6,000 to 16,500 pesetas for end-to-end journeys.
The aim of onboard service was to compete
with air travel. hospitality was provided (included
in the price of the ticket depending on which class
was chosen), along with a cafeteria car, video
service plus four individual music channels, daily
papers and magazines, family areas with tables
and games for kids, phone booths, and seats and
toilet facilities adapted for people in wheelchairs.
All these services may seem commonplace today
but back then they were major innovations which
had never previously been offered as an integral
part of a rail service.
operation began with six services a day
in each direction which were soon to prove
insufficient. The first trains left from each end of
the line at 7.00 h and the last arrived at Sevilla
Santa Justa at 22.55 h and at Madrid-Atocha at At-seat dining service in a passenger carriage of a
23.57 h. Series 100 AVE composition (October 1994).
The Spanish railway system was able to
meet the tough challenge it had set itself with the Madrid and Seville was completed. The first in
punctuality that today characterizes its high speed a long and brilliant chapter of Spanish railway
services; one day after the official inauguration history, one which changed rail travel for ever years of Spanish high speed rail
on April 20, 1992, coinciding with the opening of and has significantly contributed to the country’s
Expo, the first commercial AVE journey between development.

Vía Libre • Special 25th Anniversary of the AVE Edition 9