I'll be in Spain beginning August 6th and was curious if there's a high Speed train that goes directly from Madrid to Barcelona. I thought the AVE or Altaria did but I'm not sure if those are the train lines or the names of the trains. If so can anyone advise how many hours it would take? Thanks.

Both Ave and Altria are high speed trains. The travel time is about 5 hours depending on the time of day you depart. Prices are around 63 Euros for tourist class and 98 Euros for First Class. You may be interested in looking into flying. Vueling.com has a daily flight to Barcelona from Mardid from 26.96 tax incl. the flight duration is about 1 hour. The only downfall is the departure time is 6 am. A return flight is from 54 Euros. I hear Iberia airlines has good last minute prices aswell.

Also try Air Europa - very cheap

Currently, RENFE offers two different high-speed services from Madrid to Barcelona: Altaria, and Alvia. The latter are the newest trains operated by RENFE.

To be true, not all the route from Madrid to Barcelona is a high-speed line, because its adequation is still ongoing. Both systems (high-speed and 'regular') even have a different gauge, but the trains are prepared to change gauge with passengers on board. Alvia trains are pretty faster than Altaria doing so. As of
today, the high-speed line goes from Madrid to Lleida (about 65% of the total distance), with plans to extend it up to Tarragona (80%) within this year. Due to the major works required inside the city of Barcelona to fit the new line, including a new station, the completion of the whole route is not expected before 2008-9.

AVE is the name of the first-generation high-speed trains in Spain and can only operate on actual high-speed railways. Thus, they are serving the routes Madrid-Cordoba-Sevilla, and Madrid-Zaragoza-Lleida.

That's the first time I've heard that. Do you have any idea what the guages are and how a train is able to change between the two ?

Thank you all for the information on the train services available. I hadn't considered aflight but that sounds like a viable option as well. Thanks.

In Spain and Portugal, due to political/military reasons (avoid the risk of invasions), there is the called 'Iberian gauge', that is much broader than the standard (UIC): 1667 milimeters versus 1435. Most of the railways in Spain are of this 'Iberian gauge', the only exceptions are some of the metro systems (Line 1 of Barcelona's is Iberian g.) and lines like the Transcantabrico, or the Alicante-Denia. But all RENFE's are Iberian.

When Spain decided to enter the 'high-speed world' with the construction of the Madrid-Sevilla line opened back in '92, the main decision was the gauge to use: look back to the 19th Century and the invasion stuff, or look forward to the future and foresee an European network fully interoperable. Fortunately, the second option was the choice, and all the new lines since then, including all high-speed ones, have been built either directly in UIC gauge, or with special polivalent rails (3 rails per railway rather than 2, covering both gauges).

Changing gauges by a train is not a new problem, Talgo trains have been operating since the 60s joining Madrid and Barcelona to Paris, Zurich and Milano. They have a system that allows them to change gauges in about a 20 minutes stop. The Altaria trains that have been doing the Madrid-Barcelona route since the opening of the Madrid-Lleida leg (high-speed and UIC) are, in fact, Talgo VII series. The new Alvia service (Talgo series 102) actually can do the change 'on the move' (i.e. moving very slowly, but not stopped), with just a 5 minutes delay. AVE trains (series 100, made by Alsthon and Siemens) are designed only to operate in UIC gauge, that is why they cannot currently reach Barcelona, they can only move from Seville to Lleida. Talgo 200, a service that RENFE provides from Madrid to Huelva, Cadiz and Malaga, use the high-speed line (UIC) and the conventional one (Iberian), changing gauges in Sevilla the two formers, and Cordoba the latter.

If you want some technical explanation of the gauges and the change systems, here you have an article.

EDIT: Had I digged up a bit on the Net, I have saved you and myself my poor explanation of the story and brought you up with this link that explains everything wonderfully: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVE

I was wondering about that myself, the Renfe gauge seemed all fully wide. Was just in Switzerland and the mountain trains use a very narrow gage, dont' remember the exact width but was about have of renfe, I wondered at times why the train didn't fall over the gauge was so narrow.

My brother is visiting us in September and wants to visit Barcelona, I'm going to suggest he flies, it means an early morning trip to the Airport but at 15 euros a way you can't beat the price

Do you know if the Madrid-Barcelona train is now faster and the travel time has improved from 5 hours?

Yes, in a few days.

The opening of the Lleida-Tarragona leg of the high-speed track is scheduled for next Monday, Dec 18th. That will make the non-stop trip from MAD to BCN shorten to 4h15m. The trains that make a reduced number of stops (only ZGZ and LLE) will take 4h40, and the trains that make all stops along the route will take 4h52m.

By the way, the leg Cordoba-Antequera of the Cordoba-Malaga route will be opened tomorrow, Dec 16th. This will shorten the routes from Madrid to Malaga, but the most important thing is that the trains from Madrid to Granada will take this route too, rather than through Alcazar de San Juan/Jaen. This means a 4h30m trip instead of the current 6h.