Spain has opened its fourth high-speed rail line, Madrid-Valencia, overtaking France as the European leader in high-speed rail in terms of track length.
The project brings Spain's high-speed rail network to 2,056km and places it ahead of the 1,896km of high-speed rail in France and 1,285km in Germany.
The €6.6bn ($8.8bn) project for the 438km route will cut the travel time between Madrid and the Mediterranean port of Valencia from four hours to 90min.
Spain's high-speed train service, Alta Velocidad Espanola (AVE), operates trains at speeds of up to 300kp/h and uses the standard gauge, unlike the rest of the Spanish broad-gauge network.
All AVE trains are operated by the Spanish state railway company RENFE, although private companies may be allowed to run lines in the future.
Spain plans to have 5,525km of high-speed network by 2015, which would rank the country second in the world behind China with 13,134km, according to AFP.
