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The shortest Madrid-Paris route is through Irun, and I'm guessing doing Madrid-Zaragoza-Irun might be easier than a more direct route straigh north from Madrid because one can follow the Ebro river basin up from Zaragoza rather than having to cross the Central System running SW-NE.

Madrid-Zaragoza-Irun-Bordeaux-Tours-Paris is 1400 Km according to Google maps. That's 4 hours at 350 Km/h [though I'm not counting the stops]. It would blow all but low-cost flights out of the water, because of the time to get to/from the airports at either end, and the waiting times at check-in and baggage collection.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Apr 4th, 2007 at 06:56:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Drawing from this discussion, I suppose I should look at intermediate stops no less than 133Km apart (corresponding to 30 minutes). Madrid - Zaragoza - San Sebastian - Bordeaux - Tours -Paris could take 5h10m.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Apr 4th, 2007 at 07:51:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The problem is of course not finding the shortest route, but the one optimising both for length and new major tunnels to build.

As things stand, Zaragoza to Pamplona will be a partial high-speed line, the rest in direction of San Sebastián less certain, while the main route towards Irún will be through the Guadarrama tunnel to Valladolid, across Burgos to Vitoria, then on the Basque Y ("Y Vasca") to Irún (altogether c. 530 km). Madrid to Irún will be c. 2h20m, the Paris to Bordeaux line (535 km), if all ready by 2016, is promised at 2h10m, a Bordeaux-Dax-border line (235 km) could be done in one hour, that would add up to 5h30m. But 350 km/h and non-stop, 1300 km, even 3h50m would seem possible.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Wed Apr 4th, 2007 at 10:36:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Are you saying that the existing Guadarrama tunnel on the A6 highway would be used for the high-speed rail, while the series of tunnels on the A1 (most notably, Somosierra, but there are others) would not? Because going to Burgos via Valladolid is a sizeable detour.

Of course, politically, the Autonomous Community of Castilla-Leon would prefer to see Valladolid served first. I wouldn't be surprised if the connection between Burgos and the Basque Y takes a long while to be completed, especially if the PP is in the National government.

Valladolid would likely become a hub in any event, serving Madrid, Burgos-Vitoria, Galicia and Porto.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Apr 4th, 2007 at 10:58:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
No, I meant the 28.419/28.408 m long Guadarrama tunnel (both tubes of which have been holed through in 2005), on the new Madrid-Valladolid high-speed line, which will be the world's 4th longest when the line opens at the end of this year...



*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Wed Apr 4th, 2007 at 11:33:15 AM EST
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