Adif invested €4.7bn in 2025, but only €437m kept high-speed rail running

Maintenance has grown, but less than it seems

In 2018, Adif and Adif Alta Velocidad spent €727 million on maintenance; in 2025 the figure was €1.12 billion. Spending specific to high-speed rail rose from €255 million to €437 million. Adjusted for inflation, however, the 2018 amounts equal about €932 million and €326.91 million respectively, so real growth is much smaller than the headline numbers suggest.

The network has also grown. Its asset value rose from €44.743 billion in 2018 to €51.449 billion today. Combining inflation, spending and asset value, maintenance spending per unit of asset value in high-speed rail is about 13% lower. Per kilometre, the picture is similar: Geotren data put 2005 spending at €116,329 per km, or about €183,920 in today's money, against roughly €110,000 last year.

The Transport Ministry published charts showing maintenance growth, but they refer to the "rail network" in general and do not break out high-speed spending.

More traffic, ageing track

In Europe, Spain ranks near the bottom for the share of investment devoted to maintenance: 15%, against 34% in France. Only Denmark and Slovakia spend proportionally less, although comparisons are difficult because network structures differ.

Traffic is also far heavier. Former transport minister Óscar Puente noted that 289 trains now run between Madrid and Sevilla, compared with six a day in the 1990s, on track that is around 30 years old. When the LZB safety system failed on 30 October, six trains stopped at once on a stretch of under 70 kilometres.

Traffic controllers say staffing is unchanged since liberalisation and criticise night-time works instead of line closures for renewal. They argue ERTMS suffers fewer incidents than LZB, though drivers rate the two as comparable for safety. The debate now also covers whether the high-speed network has been expanded too far under regional pressure.