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Comment by ricardobayes | Hacker News Reader

Yes however this network is organized in a star layout, meaning there are few connections between the outer cities. If all you want is to visit Madrid from the coast, sure. But going from one coastal city to another, that's not happening. And don't get me started on the rail network towards Portugal.

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Sounds just like the TGV in France. Nice to travel between Paris and Bordeaux or Marseille for example, but travel between Bordeaux and Marseille would require going via Paris. It's hardly worth the name 'network' really.

That's not even talking about the fact that the lines don't even all connect to each other at Paris. They often terminate in different stations necessitating cumbersome travel from one station to the other.

That's a bit of a negative look. It's true that some city pairs are really poorly linked (e.g. Marseille / Bordeaux, it's just a regular slow train), however for many others the Paris-centric network is perfectly fine. Lille / Rennes / Bordeaux / Lyon / / Reims / Marseille going by Paris is not that much of an issue (direct high speed links between those wouldn't be financially worth it). The direct trains, which bypass the city of Paris itself and go on the Interconnection ring road, with its suburban (Massy, Marne la Vallée and CDG Airport) train stations, aren't frequent enough and that needs to be improved. The direct links between some cities also need improving, but there simply wouldn't be enough traffic for direct high speed rail for most city pairs.

It is almost ridiculous that there's no easy rail connection between Madrid and Lisbon. I assume it's because, when push comes to shove, the governments never come to agree on who pays for what

There was a plan that got derailed due to the European financial crisis which affected both countries.

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