Malaga-Madrid: don't call it high speed

Having a memory can be such a curse... sometimes I wish I were like all those forgetful people out there, amazed by any bit of nonsense; believing they've discovered gunpowder with every step they take, as if they had just arrived from the desert and were encountering civilization and progress for the first time.

Today, when the supposed high-speed trains are about to return to Malaga, I remember Magdalena Álvarez more than ever, and the day she opened the line from Malaga to Cordoba. She truly was a great minister of public works, and, mind you, she was of the same political persuasion as the current one; but the political and institutional level has fallen so low it's embarrassing to watch.

Back in 2008, when the AVEs had been running for a few weeks (forgive me, friends at Renfe, for using your brand name, but back then there was only AVE), the question we asked the minister was when the travel time between Malaga and Madrid could be reduced to two hours. Back then, the non-stop journey took two hours and fifteen minutes.

Yes, although it's hard to believe now, given what we are dealing with. She would get annoyed because she said she had never committed to such a thing, and it was true... But we always wanted to be better, and we pushed.

In fact, we are still at it. Furthermore, in that era, a breakdown was something totally unusual, whereas now it isn't news because it happens almost daily... It is the norm, and the routine clashes with what is newsworthy - matters of journalism.

Now, we settle for there being a few direct trains a day to the Spanish capital. And we count our blessings because it's going to take three hours, in the best-case scenario; three hours and 25 minutes for those making stops.

The railway must be the only area of Spanish infrastructure that regresses rather than evolves. But calling this "high speed" - that is simply outrageous. What we have now is more of a lame duck than an AVE.

Call it a ghost train or whatever you like; but out of respect for the memory of what this wonderful rail service once was, don't call it that anymore - at least, not until it becomes that again some day. They inherited one of the best transport systems in the world, and look what they've done with it.