Slicing through the countryside at speeds of up to 300km/h (185mph), a new Spanish bullet train whisked passengers from Madrid to Barcelona in just over 2½ hours yesterday, challenging the supremacy of flight on one of the world’s busiest air routes.

The 660km (410mile) high-speed line between the two cities is Europe’s longest – and the third to have been opened in Spain in the past two months. AVE trains now spirit passengers from Madrid to Málaga in 2 hours and 30 minutes, and from Madrid to Valladolid in 55 minutes. Until it opened in December, the latter route took nearly three hours.

Almost unnoticed by the outside world, Spain has engaged in a frenzy of high-speed rail building in recent years and is fast catching up with the world leaders, France and Japan. By 2010, the Government claims, Spain will have the most extensive high-speed rail network in the world.

“We have the largest amount of high-speed rail under construction, with five times more than the next country, Japan,” MarÍa Teresa Fernández de la Vega, the Deputy Prime Minister, said. “In just two years’ time, we’ll have the largest number of kilometres in operation.”

The burgeoning high-speed system will be linked to the French TGV network at Perpignan in 2012, making it theoretically possible to travel by high-speed train from London to the Costa del Sol. If Spain realises its ambitious plans to have 10,000km of high-speed track in place by 2020, 90 per cent of the Spanish population will live less than 50km from an AVE station.

Spain linked its two most important cities yesterday in a style that would make the long-suffering British passenger green with envy. The German-engineered S103 train, a sleek 200m aluminium tube, slid out of Atocha station, Madrid, at 6am on the dot. Instead of soggy sandwiches purchased from a passing cart, passengers were served meals created by Jordi Cruz, a Michelin-starred Catalan chef. Two hours and 35 minutes later the train smoothly pulled into Sants station in Barcelona – completing a trip that takes more than six hours by car.

Fares range from €40 (£30) to €164, one-way, and passengers get a full refund if it is 30 minutes late. Not that it should happen often: the Spanish high-speed rail service has a 98.5 per cent punctuality rate – second only to that of Japan.

Ratcheting up the pressure on the airlines further, the state-owned operator, Renfe, plans to raise the train’s top speed to 350km/h (220 mph) by up-grading the signalling system on the line, perhaps as early as this year.

The breakneck pace of high-speed rail development in Spain has prompted questions in Britain as to why it seemingly cannot do the same. Britain has only one stretch of rail rated high-speed by European standards, connecting London to the Channel Tunnel.

“It is ridiculous that the country that invented rail travel now has only 80 miles of high-speed track between Folkestone and St Pancras for the Eurostar trains,” Gerry Doherty, general secretary of the TSSA transport union, said. “We have to follow the example of Spain and France by making rail quicker and cheaper if we are to meet the challenge of low-cost airlines.”

In testimony to the parliamentary committee considering the future of Britain’s railways, Mr Doherty noted that the journey between London to Glasgow – shorter than Spain’s newest line – took 4½ hours. The walk-on, second-class fare cost £130. “We not only have the most expensive fares in Europe, we now have the slowest rail service as well,” he said.

It is not just Britons who feel left behind. America’s fastest train, the Acela Express, takes more than 6½ hours to cover the 735km trip from Boston to Washington DC.

The flight between Madrid and Barcelona takes just over an hour, on what by some estimates is the world’s busiest air route. Regular users say that when check-in times and travel to and from the airport are included, the journey takes more than three hours door to door.

That makes the AVE look attractive for business travellers, who can use their mobile phones and charge their laptop computers on the train. Renfe expects at least six million passengers on the line this year, rising to 7.8 million in 2011.

“I’ll definitely be using the new train,” said Gerardo Fuksman, a Barcelona-based marketing consultant, who flies to Madrid several times a month. “It’s faster than the plane and you can take advantage of the time you’re on it.”

The Spanish Government also hopes that environment-conscious passengers will opt for the train. Renfe estimates that a train journey between Madrid and Barcelona generates about 13kg of carbon emissions per passenger, a fraction of the estimated 70kg generated when travelling by air.

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