HIGH-SPEED rail operator Ouigo is just weeks away from launching its Valencia-Madrid connection, with around 35,600 slots a week for passengers.
Run by the French transport authority SNCF, the low-cost express between the capital and Spain's third-largest city has just increased its number of seats by 14,252 after negotiations with rail infrastructure body ADIF.
Ouigo had asked the State-run board to give it more routes, and research conducted showed it would be possible for an extra two return trips a day on the same line.
In total, this means the no-frills fast link will operate five return journeys a day between Madrid's Chamartín-Clara Campoamor station and Valencia's AVE terminus, the Joaquín Sorolla station.
The latter is reached from Valencia's main Estació Nord via free shuttle-bus.
Tickets on the Ouigo between Valencia and Madrid will start at €9 a head, and the journey takes less than two hours.
The same trip by road – which is nearly 100% motorway – takes approximately four hours, assuming no service-station stops or traffic jams, and costs an average of at least €100 in petrol.
Unsurprisingly, managing director of Ouigo Spain, Hélène Valenzuela, predicts 'very high demand' for the service.
Trains are two-storey, each with capacity for 509 passengers – more than double that of a standard-sized short-haul international airline and five times that of a small regional aircraft running internal flights – and its emissions are much lower.
According to Mme Valenzuela's calculations, a Ouigo train is 80 times less polluting than a standard aeroplane, and 50 times less than a car.
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