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Barcelona: The first bullet train from Madrid to Barcelona arrived on Wednesday, eight minutes ahead of schedule but, according to its critics, 16 years late.
Barcelona was turned down as a high-speed destination in 1992, but the train did arrive in the Catalan capital in time for the Spanish government to take credit for the 350kph service ahead of the March 9 parliamentary election.
The new AVE train, built by Germany's Siemens, left Madrid's Atocha station two minutes late on its 2-hour-43-minute journey, packed with journalists and a few bleary-eyed businessmen among rows of empty seats.
Engineers delivered the train two months late after hitting subsidence problems near the track just 4 km from the city's Sants station.
However if the Socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was counting on a feel-good factor to bolster its slim lead in opinion polls over the conservative opposition, it could be disappointed.
Infrastructure Minister Magdalena Alvarez accepted there could be electoral fallout in Catalonia.
"I think that, as socialists, all of us have to feel responsible for what happens in any part of our country and even more as a government, for good or bad, as in a marriage," she said.
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