train

The train of storms that threatens Spain is just the beginning of the problem

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What is happening? What is going to happen? As I write these lines, nine autonomous communities they have yellow notices due to rain, wind and other coastal phenomena. And the reason, as we have been repeating for the last few days, is a “train” of fronts that comes directly from the bowels of the Atlantic and will cross the peninsula. The forecast, in data. The models are beginning to converge and the forecasts are quite clear: Waves of up to five meters on the Cantabrian coast and off the coast of Galicia. Winds will easily reach 61 kilometers per hour. No particularly intense rains are expected in the coming days (the peak may be 15 l/m2 in areas of Huelva and Cádiz). Although, yes, those accumulated in Galicia, Zamora, Ávila and Cáceres may be important — above all, in a context of saturated soils. The winds, for their part, will be above 70 kilometers per hour throughout the north of the peninsula. And, with these figures, why is it important? Because of what is known as ‘multiplier risk’: we are not going to face any peak of intense rain, but the recurrence of fronts will increase operational risks. It is the meteorological equivalent of a ‘calabobos’: it seems that it does not get wet, but it ends up with half of Spain completely soaked. The only question is whether an effective “atmospheric river” is formed (or not). That is, if the humid and warm air from the Gulf of Mexico integrates into one of these fronts and a greater blow is produced. A “normal” circulation in an “abnormal” context. Because, as it is worth remembering, the cold days of recent weeks are beginning to not be normal on the peninsula. And, although this relatively active western circulation is, the arrival of successive fronts complicates the situation: there is a lot of water accumulated in the form of snow. So we go back to normal. A normality that is summarized in waiting to see how long it takes for the storm corridor to close and waiting for the swamps to continue filling. Summer will be here sooner than it seems. Image | ECMWF In Xataka | While the snow devours half of Europe, there is a place where it is 27ºC and on the beach in the middle of January: Greece

Taking a train to go to work in Barcelona or Girona has become an impossible mission

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Finding an AVANT train ticket to move around Catalonia has become quite a risky mission. Thousands of people who travel daily from Girona and Lleida to Barcelona face the impossibility of finding this type of ticket less than two weeks in advance. The high demand has overwhelmed the supply of places on high-speed services, forcing users to plan their trips weeks in advance or risk being left without transportation. The problem in figures. Demand for AVANT services has skyrocketed in recent years. According to Renfe data that share elDiario, in 2024 the Figueres-Barcelona line transported 1.52 million passengers, 43% more than in 2022. From Lleida, the increase was even more pronounced: 488,000 travelers in 2024, 65% more than two years before. This exponential growth has exceeded the capacity of the current infrastructure, creating a bottleneck that especially affects peak demand times. Why are AVANTs collapsed? The phenomenon has several causes. The main one is 50% bonus in the price of the passes implemented in 2022, which has turned these trains into an accessible alternative to the private vehicle. Added to this is the deterioration of the Rodalies and Media Distancia service, plagued by incidents and delayswhich has pushed many users towards high speed. Travel times are also a more attractive factor: 40 minutes from Girona to Barcelona compared to an hour and a half by conventional train, or an hour and a quarter from Lleida compared to more than three hours by Rodalies. The odyssey of getting a ticket. Daniel Blay, who usually takes the Girona-Barcelona train, account to elDiario that “on Monday of each week I try to reserve all the tickets for the following week, because if not you will run out.” For some critical schedules, such as the 7:25 train from Girona, there are no places available “within ten days or two weeks.” From Lleida, the situation is similar. Kevin Bruque, spokesperson for the Avant Catalunya Users platform, explained to the media that “you only find 15 days in advance to get a ticket if you are lucky.” Delays exacerbate chaos. In addition to the shortage of places, users report a significant increase in delays. More than 550 users have a Telegram group for the Girona line, coordinated by Blay, in which they already They have documented 292 delays longer than four minutes only in November 2025. Many of these delays occur on return journeys in the afternoon, when trains accumulate delays from long-distance services from Seville, Valencia or Madrid, according to the media. To solve this problem, many travelers demand shuttle trains that do not depend on connections with other routes, they assured from elDiario. The official response is insufficient. Renfe recognizes that the offer has grown from 1.4 million seats annually in 2022 to 2.4 million in 2024, but users maintain that frequencies have not been added during peak hours, where they are most needed. The operator attributes the delays to the improvement works on the Catalan railway network, especially in the future Sagrera station. However, passengers consider that these explanations do not solve the underlying problem: the need for more trains and more seats. More solutions. Among the urgent measures proposed by several of the traveler platforms, the 50% bonus should be maintained beyond 2025, since its disappearance would make the cost unaffordable for many workers and students. On the other hand, they demand an increase in frequencies and available seats. CCOO has proposed reusing Avlo service trains that are out of use to double the capacity of AVANT, an initiative that the Generalitat has included in its railway strategy under the name Catav, according to share the ARA Newspaper. In the case of Lleida, users also claim to be able to access the empty seats on the Madrid-Barcelona AVE trains that stop in their city, something that is currently only possible on four frequencies. What happens now? The Minister of Territory, Silvia Paneque, advertisement last week that the Government is working with the Ministry of Transport to improve AVANT services in Girona and Lleida. CCOO confirms that the ministry has agreed to study the proposal to reuse Avlo trains. It remains to be seen if the proposals end up reaching a solution that clarifies all this chaos. Cover image | Zarateman (Wikipedia) In Xataka | Renfe has three AVRIL trains lost and an even more serious problem: it still does not know when it will receive them

In 1970, the train to my town in Extremadura took 20 minutes longer than it does today. It’s a painful reminder about “high speed”

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For eight days, Cáceres and Badajoz have been linked by train. To be exact, they are united by a train typical of the 21st century and, more specifically, of 2025. Since last December 1the two largest cities in Extremadura are linked by a journey of just 50 minutes. A trip with four frequencies daily that makes the lives of thousands of Extremadurans easier. By the middle of next year, in 2026, the Government says that trains will finally be able to reach 300 km/h. If fulfilled, it will be a milestone for the region and a first step to make that Madrid-Lisbon a reality, of which been talking for more than 20 years. Europe seems to have gotten serious in that sense. The intention is to have a connection between capitals in 2030 and that four years later, the journey will only take a little more than 180 minutes. Three hours that now seem little more than a chimera. Especially if we take into account that the first promise to connect both cities dates back to 2003. So he was aiming for 2010 as a final date to have the high-speed connection ready. Today, from Madrid to Badajoz, the only section that operates at “high speed” is the one that separates Badajoz from Cáceres… and a little further, up to the Monfragüe station and its connection with Plasencia. The problem is that the Plasencia-Badajoz section is only one of the three sections that make up the connection between Madrid and the Portuguese border. Yes, it began to act as an electrified connection of iberian width in December 2023. Now, almost two years later, passengers can move between Cáceres and Badajoz in less than an hour. But traveling between Madrid and Badajoz still requires you to use almost five hours of travel. And it is not something that is going to change in the short term. Because it took us almost the same time to get to Extremadura as it did 50 years ago. 20 minutes Browsing the net and trying to understand how we have evolved, I came across the seventh number of the Renfe guide in which the schedules of all the trains available in Spain between December 1970 and March 1971 are collected. In addition to having a good time diving and finding some curiosities such as that the traveler had a Madrid-Paris available that only required worrying about the change in gauge at the border, I found something that caught my attention. Since I was a child, I move frequently between Madrid and Extremadura. Specifically, a town near the Monfragüe Natural Park, an enclave that is located a few kilometers from Plasencia. As long as I’ve had a car, I’ve always traveled in it, but when I didn’t have a driving license I used to opt for the bus. First because there were more frequencies available. Then because delays and breakdowns became part of normality. A shame because the train trip is much more comfortable than the bus and should be faster. Ought. Because while diving I found a detail that caught my attention. Trains leaving from Madrid and arriving in Extremadura in 1970. Click on the image to see more schedules There it was. Train leaving Madrid at 10:40. Arrival at Palazuelo-Empalme (current Monfragüe station) at 13:41 minutes. 181 minutes to cover the 253 kilometers of the journey. Today, luckily, Renfe offers a faster connection. Specifically, 20 minutes faster. As you can see in the following image, the trains between this Extremaduran station (the first electrified) and Madrid are still more than two and a half hours away to travel just over 250 kilometers. Let us remember that Madrid and Barcelona aspire to be united in less time. Or that in less than 10 years we should see a Madrid-Lisbon in less than three hours. The problem, as we said, is that the connection between Madrid and Extremadura is progressing at an extremely slow pace. The first step has been to electrify the Iberian gauge track between Badajoz and this Extremaduran stop. Now, in addition, it is double, which prevents a failure in one direction from immediately affecting the other and, at least, one of the two from continuing to function. The second and biggest problem is that the connection in its La Mancha section is especially slow. The line is divided as follows: Plasencia-Cáceres-Mérida-Badajoz section Talayuela-Plasencia section Madrid-Oropesa section At the moment, the section between Talayuela and Plasencia (on the Extremadura side) is in the construction phase but as indicated in Levantthe works are still in an initial phase. In fact, of the seven subsections into which it is divided, only two of them have been completed, as collected by Adif. Despite everything, the deadlines should not be extended much longer and the section should be active in 2028. But the most problematic thing is in Castilla-La Mancha. The Madrid-Oropesa section is still in the information project phase. In it, the biggest obstacle is the passage through Toledo. The intention of the Ministry of Transport and the city council is to bring the AVE as close as possible to the municipality, using the current station that is located just two kilometers away in a straight line from the urban area. This forces us to design a new viaduct to solve the passage through the Tagus… and there is the conflict. The Autonomous Community and platforms in defense of the city’s heritage believe that it damages its image and propose an alternative station in an industrial estate further away from the urban area, reducing the visual impact and discarding the need for the viaduct. They show in an exhaustive analysis in Geotrain how one day, if all goes well, in 2030 we will have a connection between Madrid and Badajoz in 151 minutes. That is, in two and a half hours. Until then, it will still be 10 minutes less than it currently takes to the station closest to my town, located long before reaching … Read more

Mexico hoped that the Mayan Train would change the country’s economy. It is not convincing either tourists or locals

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Their locomotives started between promises of wealth generationemployment and progress, but almost two years after its first inauguration he Mayan Train (one of the most ambitious projects of former Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador) is far from the expectations of its promoters. It does not seem to be arousing special interest among tourists. Nor among the locals. In fact The Country just revealed a figure that gives an idea of ​​the extent to which it has started with modest results: it moves 5% of the expected demand. The big question is… Why? What is the Mayan Train? One of López Obrador’s star projects and probably one of the most ambitious infrastructures developed in recent years in Mexico. He Mayan Train It is a railway circuit of more than 1,500 km that crosses Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, states located in the southeast, where some of the poorest regions of the country are located. Is it operational? Yes. After a construction marked by the controversychanges and a billion dollar investment which multiplied the initial budget, the trains began to circulate almost two years ago, although they were launched in a phased manner. In December 2023 A smiling López Obrador participated in the inaugural route on the Campeche-Cancún section. A year later, with Sheinbaum at the head of the Government, the implementation of the rest of routesincluded the lastbetween Campeche and the Chetumal airport. To celebrate and give an extra push to the structure, the Executive launched a tourist package especially to attract users for Christmas. Why is it news now? Because things don’t seem to be going especially well for the Mayan Train. This is what the revealed data by The Countrywhich claims to have accessed a report from the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) which confirms that the start of the service has not aroused the expected interest. During its first year of operations, it transported an average of 3,200 passengers daily. The initial forecasts were for this figure to be around 74,000, which did not even reach 5% of what was expected. The reporters who write the report from Mexico they assure that in the middle of high season it is not unusual to find trains that run almost empty in some sections and that at the stations it is common to come across more guards and cleaning employees than visitors. When talking to tourists who visit the region, some admit that they had not heard of the Mayan Train. What is the cause of this puncture? The million dollar question. And it is not easy to answer it. The testimonies collected by The Country They suggest that the train has not yet managed to catch on in either of the two markets in which it should attract passengers: domestic and international. It does not convince locals to travel through the southeast of Mexico, but neither does it convince foreign tourists who want to get to know the region. The reason is a combination of economic, logistical, cultural factors and habits that are difficult to change. If we talk about locals, the Mayan Train loses appeal for a simple reason: the location of the stations. The military company that operates it offers them discounts, but they must add the transportation price to get to the terminal to the ticket price. “The train to my town is far away. If I wanted to travel by train, I would basically have to spend twice as much. To go to Mérida I take the bus, which is more direct and cheaper,” explains a tour guide. Added to this is the deep-rooted use of other means of transport, such as the bus itself, motorcycles or taxis. And what about tourists? Despite the efforts to establish the service among foreign tourists, the Mayan Train does not seem to be succeeding in that market niche either. The visitors they keep coming to the Yucatan Peninsula, but their travel depends largely on travel companies and their itineraries, often agreed with bus companies and hoteliers. Although users highlight that trains are generally comfortable and safe and has been invested Already in the promotion of the service, there are still tourists who come to the Yucatán without having heard not even talk about the Mayan Train. Others do not quite see its advantages over traditional alternatives, such as renting a car to move freely or paying for tours in advance. Why is it important? For several reasons. To begin with, because the Mayan Train has not been just an ambitious project. It has also been marked by controversy. Recently National Geographic published a report in which he explains how its implementation has polarized part of Mexican society, with positions divided between those who believe it will help energize the region and those who focus on the impact it has had on the environment. Beyond this debate about the pros and cons of the train, what is undeniable is that the project has cost a lot more than initially planned. In 2023 the BBC network assured that from the between 120,000 and 150,000 million Mexican pesos that were initially spoken of, it went to nearly 500,000 million. This great investment effort was accompanied by promises of its economic return. What is expected from the train? “It is a magnum opus, we are not exaggerating if we say that there is no one like it in the world today,” stood out two years ago, during his inauguration, López Obrador. And at the time it was even proposed that the train would help encourage tourism and employment in some of the most impoverished regions of Mexico, with a project that, in addition to the railway, includes museums, hotels, archaeological zones and hotels. In 2020, a UN-Habitat study even suggested that it would help lift people out of poverty. 1.1 million of people. What does the Government say? He claims that the start-up of the train has not been bad. In summer the Government assured that the service … Read more

In the search for a supersonic train, China tests a Maglev that will reach 4,000 km/h. The problem will be maintaining it

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China’s conquest of the high-speed train field is impressive. In the 2008 Beijing Olympicsthe country had just 120 kilometers of high speed between Beijing and Tianjin. 17 years latermanage more high-speed kilometers than any other countrya very long distance from Spain or Japan. They are not only building kilometers to unite the entire country: they are developing technologies so that the plane is no longer necessary. As? With Maglev trains at speeds of 1,000 km/h. And a specific model, the T-Flight, which dreams of 4,000 km/h. Maglev + Hyperloop. China is one of the countries, along with Japan, that is investing a lot of money in the development of the magnetic levitation trainsor Maglev. This technology allows trains not to rest their wheels on the rails, but rather to float thanks to a series of powerful magnets and an electromagnetic field. This allows us to exceed the 250 km/h that has been set as a standard for high speed and, for example, China has the fastest Maglev in the worldone that reaches 431 km/h. It is already operational between Beijing and Shanghai, but in Japan is testing one that will exceed 600 km/h. It’s a speed that will seem slow compared to what CASIC is preparing. It stands for “China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation,” a state-owned tactical missile company that announced the T-Flight project in August 2017. The idea? Combine magnetic levitation trains with Hyperloop-style vacuum tubes. T-Flight. In short, it is putting a Maglev in a vacuum tube, eliminating air pressure and resistance as much as possible, but there is much more. For example, the idea of CASIC is that magnetic levitation is enhanced thanks to superconductors that will raise the train up to 100 mm above the rail. Conventional Maglevs are raised by about 10 mm, and the idea is that the higher the train is, the more stability it will have at extreme speeds. On the other hand, the tube itself, with a system that extracts air from it to create a low pressure environment, reducing aerodynamic resistance to the maximum. This partial vacuum and levitation that eliminates the physical resistance of the wheel and track is what will allow unprecedented speeds to be achieved. Achievements. In 2024 they already achieved one first validated test as a world record by reaching 623 km/h, but in the summer of this year, in a low pressure environment, The train reached 650 km/h in seven seconds in its laboratory. They were strange tests, since the track was a kilometer long when the usual thing is much longer, but that also gives us a clue of what brutal which is both the acceleration and braking of the train. That is, think that, in seven seconds and in just one kilometer, the train accelerated to 650 km/h and stopped. The team’s idea is to reach 800 km/h as the top speed this year, but the ambition goes much further. Ambition. Currently, the team is in Phase 1, which is the one that aims aim that speed of 1,000 km/h. To do this, and to validate the speed in real conditions, they want to extend the test track to 60 kilometers. However, the thing does not stop there and, when the project was born, it was already said that Phase 2 and Phase 3 would have as aim 2,000 km/h (almost double the cruising speed of a traditional commercial airplane) and 4,000 km/hsupersonic speeds that would compete with the fastest planes in the world. This would allow large urban centers in China to be linked in a few minutes, leaving aside the need to take planes to cover long distances. In fact, this high speed is already showing in Europe that short flights do not make sense if we combine the waiting time at the airport with the flight itself and compare it with the comfort of access to the train. A major challenge. Now, the goal will not be easy. Maglev technology works and is proven, but what they want to achieve with this T-Flight not only complicates things because, in addition to a track, a tube must be built. And, of course, maintain it. Extending this partial vacuum over hundreds of kilometers of tube represents an enormous technical challenge because it implies that the joints must be perfectly sealed, without the cold and heat dilating them so that there are no leaks. It is estimated that a 600 km pipe requires an expansion joint every 100 meters, and each one of them represents a potential point of failure. Furthermore, at 300 km/h appreciate vibrations in the seats. Air system to reduce pressure inside the tubes Furthermore, any decompression would be catastrophic and perhaps most importantly: there is no certification standard or safety protocols for something like this. In any case, T-Flight continues to take steps at a good pace and, although it seems difficult to see it working in the short term, if a country can achieve it right now… it is China. Images | Geely In Xataka | After 20 years, the definitive one arrives: Brazil prepares the first high-speed train in South America

AEMET knows that what is coming is not just a train of storms, it is a ‘master class’ on how winter works in Spain today

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This beginning of December comes with a train of Atlantic storms, several cold fronts in a row, snow, wind and a lot of sudden thermal changes. But it goes much further than all this: what we are going to see is a perfect example of how winter in Spain works today (in the midst of the climate crisis). What is going to happen? The quick summary is that the start of December 2025 in Spain will be marked by a very active Atlantic circulation. And that takes the form of a “squall train” that will cross the Peninsula during the first 10 days of the month. The most immediate will be a cold front that will leave abundant rains in Galicia and the Cantabrian Sea (with local accumulations of up to 50 l/m²), snow above 1000 meters and strong gusts of wind on the coast. But, as I say, it is the first of at least four. The reign of the negative NAO. We said it a few days ago, the European Weather Forecast Center pointed because the first days of the month we were going to be in negative NAO. The ‘NAO’ is the ‘North Atlantic Oscillation‘ is what meteorologists call the relentless fight between the Azores anticyclone and the Icelandic low, the two great atmospheric phenomena that govern the meteorology of the North Atlantic. When the index we use to “measure who is winning” is negative, the Azores anticyclone is weaker than normal and, for this reason, it cannot block deep Atlantic storms. The direct consequence is that they circulate further south than normal: right at our latitude. This is exactly what is happening. For this reason (and as a novelty) “squall train” is not a funny journalistic metaphor: there are four very active fronts heading towards Spain. And it goes without saying that this is good news: we are coming from very dry and irregular autumns and, despite the cushion of dammed water that we havea phenomenon of this type is going to be really good for us. It remains to be seen if we will be able to take advantage of the rainfall that will arrive. Why do I say this is “a perfect example of how it works today (in the middle of the climate crisis) winter”? Because although the pattern of “chained storms” is classic of the Atlantic winter, these dynamics are encountering a warmer basal situation: the atlantic ocean and the Mediterranean Sea is warmer (and therefore have more energy). It’s “business as usual”, but at higher speeds. In this situation, in fact, a scenario is feared for Europe in which there is less rain in summer in the Mediterranean and more episodes of extreme rain in the cold seasons. This feeling that everything is very similar to the same as always, but in a completely different way, is very strange. Image | Tropical TidBits In Xataka | The most beautiful, exciting and hopeful thing about November has come out of England and it is a weather forecast

The hundreds of black dots on train and car windows are not a whim: they are a shield called ‘frits’

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Traveling by car or train means looking around the windows. You probably don’t just look at the landscape, but at all the vehicle interior elementsthe closest being the edge of those windows. A common element on the train and on the car window is a black border with a curious pattern of dots that become smaller as the rows increase. It is not paint or an aesthetic element, but something that fulfills a crucial technical function to protect the integrity of the glass. They are called ‘frit band‘ either ‘frits‘, and it is one of the most important passive safety elements that these vehicles have. The Science of Car Window Blackheads Although it seems like it, these dots are not paint: they are ceramics baked at very high temperatures, which fuses with glass during manufacturing of the same. He process It is most curious, since first the still hot black ceramic paste is applied to the edges of the glass, and then it is baked together with the glass in the tempering and bending process. In Xataka In 2001, Renault launched a car ahead of its time: it was a miserable failure that now has another chance It is a structural element of glass and this process involves a permanent bond that does not wear over time. The dot pattern motif, known as “gradient matrix”it is not a whim either, but a solution to something that could spontaneously break the car window. Black glass absorbs much more heat than clear glass, and this is something you can easily check on a sunny day: the black band will be hotter than the rest of the glass. When the temperature is extreme, and on trips where the moon can being hit by small stonesif there were an abrupt temperature transition between the black border and the transparent area, stress points would be created that could cause cracks. That’s why they pulled out that gradient that works like a processor heatsink: creates a thermal transition zone which distributes heat more evenly. It is something that provides protection to the glass, but they serve something else: to help the bond between the chassis and the glass. On the perimeter of the crystals there is glue that joins the elements, and the ‘frits’ have a rougher texture that allows a better adhesion from glass to chassis. Also, being black, they protect the glue against ultraviolet rays, maximizing its durability and the security of the union of the components. A detail from Jeep, which introduced an Easter egg in these frits In the end, what might seem like a simple aesthetic element fulfills an important safety function. In the train, this adhesion and thermal dissipation, and in the car, added to the above, greater resistance of the moon to shocks. In some cars it has been used to place a nod, and the fact that they are circles and not another geometric element has an aesthetic part, but also functional because it makes us overlook them while driving. It is one more example of all that everyday technology that surrounds us and that perhaps we always wonder if it would have some function, but once that initial curiosity passes, we forget to look. Images | Jeep, Abil Saputra In Xataka |Cars have become gigantic. The problem is that our parking spaces do not (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news The hundreds of black dots on train and car windows are not a whim: they are a shield called ‘frits’ was originally published in Xataka by Alejandro Alcolea .

Saudi Arabia is looking for someone to build its new high-speed train. And a battalion of Spanish giants are going to compete

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Saudi Arabia has put one of the most ambitious railway projects in the Middle East on the table, and the response from the global industry has been especially strong: 145 international companies have officially expressed their interest for participating in the new high-speed line that will connect Riyadh with Qiddiya, a newly created city dedicated to tourism and entertainment. And as it could not be otherwise, among the candidates stand out several Spanish companies with great experience when it comes to cooperating in Saudi projects. What exactly is this project. It is about the Qiddiya High-Speed ​​Railalso known as Q-Express, a high-speed rail line that will link King Salman International Airport and the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh with Qiddiya City, according to the Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC). The trains will reach speeds of up to 250 km/h and the intention is for them to complete the journey in about 30 minutes. Qiddiya is one of Saudi Arabia’s five official mass tourism-oriented gigaprojects and is expected to occupy some 376 square kilometers. The city will include 12 amusement parksa Formula 1 circuit and is projected to house 500,000 inhabitants. Several Spanish companies interested. Between companies that have shown interest There are Spanish names with weight in the railway sector. CAF and Talgo appear in the category of manufacturers of rolling stock and railway systems, where they compete with giants such as Alstom, Siemens Mobility, Hitachi Rail or Stadler Rail. Renfe and Alsa, for their part, are among the 12 interested railway operators, along with Deutsche Bahn, Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane or SNCF. In construction, FCC Construction and Copasa stand out, while in technical consulting, Sener, Ayesa, Idom and Typsa are present, competing with international firms such as Aecom, AtkinsRéalis or Systra. Previous experience in the country. Several of these Spanish companies are not new to Saudi Arabia. Some were part of the consortium that developed the well-known AVE to Mecca (Haramain train), which connects the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Currently, Renfe operates precisely that high-speed line. The president of the company, Álvaro Fernández de Heredia, visited Saudi Arabia just a few weeks ago to participate in an international railway meeting, and where reaffirmed the company’s commitment to collaborate with Saudi Arabia Railways on new projects. For its part, Alsa It already has a guaranteed presence in Qiddiya: a €500 million contract was recently awarded to operate the city’s future buses. Fierce world-class competition. He complete list of interested parties gives clues to the magnitude of the project. The 68 main contractors include companies from China (eight companies, including China Railway Construction Corporation and Aviation Industry Corporation of China), Turkey (with Gülermak, Kalyon or Yapı Merkezi), Italy (Webuild and Saipem), South Korea (Hyundai Engineering and Samsung C&T), France (Bouygues Travaux Publics), India (Larsen & Toubro) and Portugal (Mota-Engil), among other countries. 16 capital investors and 23 design and project management consultancies have also shown interest. How it is going to develop. The project will be executed under a public-private partnership model (PPP), as announced by the RCRC in collaboration with the National Center for Privatization and the QIC. The registration period where companies could show interest in the project opened on September 12 and closed on October 12. Although it was initially planned to be developed under a conventional model, the Saudi authorities finally opted for a public-private collaboration scheme. What comes next. The development includes two phases. The first will connect Qiddiya with KAFD and King Khalid International Airport. The second phase will extend from a development known as North Pole, which includes the Public Investment Fund’s two-kilometre-high tower, to New Murabba, King Salman Park, central Riyadh and the Industrial City south of Riyadh. In addition, the 65-kilometer Riyadh metro line 7 will also connect the capital with Qiddiya City in the future. With so many high-level companies competing for this megaproject, now it’s time to find out which consortiums manage to position themselves as favorites in the bidding. Cover image | HE In Xataka | The electrification of the railway passes through Valencia: the Stadler plant will be in charge of building 200 hybrid locomotives

The longest train in history was born in 2001 and since then no one has surpassed it

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The train is the backbone of many countries. In Europe we know it wellin Latin America is catching up and the China and Japan current ones would not be understood without it. Another country where it is vital is Australia, although more than for the movement of the population, for the transport of goods. And, in 2001, in the heart of Western Australia, the BHP Iron Ore It made history by becoming the longest train in the world. More than seven kilometers long that have not yet been equaled. Necessary. One of the most powerful industries in Australia is mining, so much so that there are even mining influencers that recruit workers from any country. In the late 90s, mining companies faced a challenge: an increasing amount of mineral had to be transported from the source to the export ports. It was a challenge because logistics costs had to be kept under control so that prices did not skyrocket. Traditionally, we would have chosen to put more trains into operation, but it would not be efficient because we would have to pay for more fuel, for the use of the infrastructure and the salaries of a larger crew. Come into play BHPthe Australian giant that is one of the largest mining companies in the world, with an idea: what if we set up a huge train to load iron? This is how the Iron Ore train was born. The BHP Iron Ore train. Its dimensions were extraordinary: a convoy made up of 682 wagons, 5,648 wheels, a loaded weight of almost 100,000 tons and a length of 7,353 kilometers. Imagine 22 Eiffel Towers lying down and aligned, like this. To pull such a monster, eight locomotives GE AC6000CW (each with 6,000 HP) with 16-cylinder engines were distributed throughout the vehicle. Apart from the front, the rest were within a kilometer of each other and managed to complete a 275 kilometer Yandi journey, with a cargo of Newman mines, to Port Hedland in just ten hours. The pace was slow, yes, but the important thing about this was not It was the Guinness record that he achieved, but the proof of a technology called Distributed Power. Distributed Power. This was BHP’s goal, to prove that the technology worked. And it basically consists of what we have said: distributing the locomotives along the train instead of concentrating them in the front so that the traction and braking force is greater, more uniform and, also, more efficient. Everything worked like a Swiss clock thanks to great precision and harmony between the locomotives, which were controlled by a single driver in the front system. It’s long, and there’s no train If Distributed Power was the technology, the control system was the LOCOTROL. The leading locomotive communicated with the remote ones through a radio frequency system that synchronized all acceleration and braking operations. This allowed lateral forces and friction to be drastically reduced when cornering, which reduced both wheel wear and the risk of derailment and, in turn, it is estimated that between 4 and 6% less fuel was consumed. Pilbara. The BHP Iron Ore was a technical prodigy that set the record for the longest train in the world in 2001, but if you are a train enthusiast, don’t pack your bags yet to see it in action: it was a one-time event, so much so that there is very little material about it. Once the technology was proven, what BHP did was apply it to smaller trains. The Pilbara is the region in which much of its operations are concentrated, and what the company currently operates are several regular trains with formations of about four locomotives with about 270 carriages. It is still impressive, since the length of these trains is close to three kilometers and they have a loaded weight of about 40,000 tons. The company’s next steps are to electrify these trains to reduce emissions, and one trick will be to use regenerative braking to recharge the batteries in sloped areas. It is something that other companies are also testing in the country. Similar attempts. Thus, the BHP Iron Ore was a prodigy, but also something unique that has not been matched, not even close, more than 20 years after its launch for that test. In August this year, Indian Railways commissioned the Rudrastraa 354-car, 4.5-kilometer-long train powered by seven locomotives (two at the front and one every 59 cars). And in Europe, tests are also being carried out with distributed power trains, but for kilometer and a half trains. In the end, they are all very far from the Iron Ore both in length and weight, but beyond the record in 2001 it was shown that this distributed power technology was a solution for trains longer than conventional ones. We’ll see if at some point someone needs to create a longer train, but it seems complicated. Images | WabtecBHP In Xataka | The longest train journey in the world: more than 18,000 kilometers between Portugal and Singapore without changing transport

The EU wants to connect Madrid and Paris by train, in six hours and by 2035. Or in 2042. Or maybe never

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The European Commission has approved an ambitious Action Plan for the high-speed railway that aims to triple the European network, going from the current 12,000 kilometers to 36,000 kilometers before 2040. The objective is to turn the train into a real alternative to the plane for medium-distance journeys, drastically reducing travel times between the main capitals of the continent. And Spain is going to have an important role. What changes for Spain. The plan directly affects our country with two priority connections: Madrid-Lisbon in three hours (compared to more than eight currently) and Madrid-Paris in six hours (instead of the more than twelve that are needed now). From Bilbao you can reach Lisbon in less than six hours passing through the capital. The proposal contemplates that these improvements be operational in 2035although the corridor with France raises more doubts than the plan to join with Lisbon. Why it is important. Currently, the 12,000 kilometers of European high speed are mainly concentrated in Spain, France, Italy and Germany, while the east and center of the continent remain poorly connected. Just like points out Commissioner for Sustainable Transport, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, “Central and Eastern Europe remains woefully poorly connected.” Spain, with almost 4,000 operational kilometers, is European leader in high-speed infrastructure, only behind China globally. The money problem. Complete the planned network by 2040 will cost about 345,000 million euros. If we also want trains to run well above 250 kilometers per hour, the figure shoots up to 546 billion until 2050, according to Brussels. The organization admits that public financing it won’t be enough and seeks to attract private investment, in addition to loans from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the national public bank (ICO in Spain). The idea is that in 2026 an agreement will be negotiated between Member States, financial institutions and other organizations and companies to settle the investment issue. Between the lines. Although the plan sounds ambitious, Brussels recognizes that it is very late: In 2020, the goal of doubling the network by 2030 was set, but by 2023 it had only grown by 17%. France, key to connecting Madrid with Paris, maintains a more pessimistic calendar than Brussels and does not see the connection as feasible until 2042. The Spanish minister himself Óscar Puente has recognized that the direct connection with Paris “will not arrive next year”. Tzitzikostas has announced who works intensely with the ministers of Spain and France to “overcome border bottlenecks.” The effect on airlines. A Madrid-Paris flight lasts just over two hours, but adding waiting times, boarding and transfers from airports, it is close to the six hours that the direct train to the city center would take. Spain and France short flights have already been banned with a rail alternative of less than two and a half hours. In addition, the EU obliges airlines to use at least 70% green fuels by 2050, starting with 2% this year, which will make flights more expensive. And now what. The plan is certainly not written in stone and the roadmap will depend on the political will of each country and the ability to attract private investment. Spain is well positioned to take advantage of these funds, since according to the media Expansión, It has 700 kilometers under construction and another 700 projected that will take the network above 5,000 kilometers between 2030 and 2032. The Commission also promises a new ticket strategy in 2026 to “make it easier for passengers to book multimodal tickets” and a full liberalization of the sector in 2040, which should reduce prices. Cover image | Tim Adams In Xataka | There was a day when Japan was the leading high-speed country. It has been surpassed by China, a victim of its own country

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