Madrid–León high-speed rail line

The Madrid–León high-speed rail line was inaugurated on 29 September 2015. The line is built to standard gauge and gauge changers are provided at strategic points to allow interchange with older Spanish railways which were built to Iberian gauge.The line was inaugurated in two stages. Its first 179.6 km section Madrid - Segovia - Valladolid opened for commercial service on 23 December 2007 and is the first instalment of a high-speed rail corridor in the north and northwest of Spain. AVE services reduced journey times between Madrid and Valladolid from 2½ hours to 56 minutes at an average speed of 192 kilometres per hour . The second 162.7 km section Valladolid-Venta de Baños-León opened on 29 September 2015 and was built at a cost of €1,62bn for operation at up to 350 km/h. Since then the journey time between Madrid and León was cut by 44 min to 2 h 6 min on AVE trains.

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