The AVE

	Standard Gauge (1435mm)	Broad Gauge (1674mm)
Top Commercial Speed:	186mph (300km/h)	138mph (220km/h)
Best Average Speed:	130mph (209.1 km/h)

AVE stands for Alta Velocidad Española which translated into English means Spanish high speed. The Spanish AVE is essentially a converted TGV Atlantique built with a few Spanish components. Up until very recently Spain has used its own railway gauge of 1674mm instead of the European standard of 1435mm. It was thought that Spain would be harder to invade if it had a different track gauge. Now however, 471 km or 294 miles of standard gauge AVE track has been built using German technology. There trains may reach 300km/h or 186mph.

For the rest of the 12187km or 7617 miles of railways in Spain, the AVE trainsets have been converted to run on the different guage. However there is a price to pay, on broad gauge the sets are unfortunately limited to 220km/h or 138mph.

The Other AVE, the Talgo

The Talgo is a train pulled by the class 252 rather that a train set and has no connection with the TGV. It pulls trains along both standard gauge AVE lines and the Broad gauge lines. It has a top speed of a healthy 220km/h or 138mph, a fairly typical figure for a high speed train in Europe.