In northern Spain, there is a slow train line that connects Barcelona with Galicia called the "tren estrella," but it stops everywhere and uses old infrastructure, so it is slow. Traveling to Madrid is always fast with the newer AVE lines, and more are being built.
No idea about Portugal. I guess that it is the same situation, and those routes are covered by buses.
Then you have the Pyrenees between the Iberian peninsula and France. Aside from being mountainous, also fairly low population density, and rather poorer regions to the point that you'll find abandoned villages.
So, the only sensible connections are along the Mediterranean (Catalonia) or the Atlantic coast (Basque Country).
Another reason is that Spain has high-speed rails only since the nineties.
IRC, just in the recent years, there was a high-speed connection built to the Basque Country (from Madrid). From the Basque Country you can go to France with a light rail.
So, the only high-speed connection is along the Mediterranean.
In a way, it's a center/periphery problem.
France is prioritising connections from/to Paris, Spain from/to Madrid.
Unless either side improves the network at their side of the border, it also makes limited sense to improve yours.
The EU is funding that.
Interesting that Spain and Portugal seems so disconnected.
I always thought of this visualization type as kind of a gimmick, but recently used this site for planning a vacation. I was visiting one place in the middle of the country and wanted to find some time efficient way to travel to "some coast" as the second part of that journey, inside the UK. The travel time was very much dependent on the specific main lines rather than geographical distance, so that was very helpful.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42530332 8 months ago - 648 points - 412 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32537382 Aug 21, 2022 - 80 points - 42 comments
There is now with a search feature https://www.chronotrains.com/
It states 6:01 for going from my parents to my home, in reality it's over 8 because switching trains is rarely within 10 minutes.
We can almost make out the contours of the mountain ranges. For example if you look at France, there is like a big hole in the middle of the southern half of the country, that all train lines seem to avoid. That's the Massif Central mountain range, the largest of the country and a sparsely populated area. Same idea with the Apennines in Italy.
Compare to relatively flat countries like Germany and Poland where it is much more uniform.
You could use a population density map too, but if a low population area is flat, express trains tend to go straight through them instead of avoiding them, which give some spotty coverage rather than none at all as it is the case in mountainous areas.
By not bad I mean that there is a way to reach the places bu choosing cities around the region. I did not say that it is easy :)
shindeyash28•4mo ago
amelius•4mo ago
(Maybe someone can find the point where it can be changed in the Javascript code.)
JoshTriplett•4mo ago
NitpickLawyer•4mo ago