西班牙国有铁路运营商于近日决定停运一条最新开通的高速铁路，原因是该线路自开通以来，每天只有9名乘客搭乘。据悉，这条高铁线路于去年12月正式开通，主要连接卡斯蒂利亚-拉曼恰首府托莱多和阿尔瓦塞特及昆卡等城市，是西班牙取代法国成为欧洲最大高铁运营网络的重要线路之一。据介绍，该线路每日的运行费用为1.8万欧元，但是日均客流量仅有9人，成为了一条名副其实的“鬼魂列车”。该公司客运总监宣布，该条线路将于本周五起停运，原本搭乘该线路的乘客需要在马德里换乘，出行时间将比目前增加20多分钟。

Enrique Urkijo, the Director General for Passengers at Renfe said 'From Friday it will no longer be in service.'

Spain's state-controlled rail operator has been forced to axe one of its newest high speed train services after it emerged that the only nine passengers were using it each day.

The AVE route connecting the Castilla la Mancha capital Toledo with the cities of Albacete and Cuenca was inaugurated with much fanfare last December, one of the links that helped Spain overtake France as the country operating Europe's biggest high speed rail network.

But Enrique Urkijo, the Director General for Passengers at Renfe, was forced to concede that the project had not been a success and that operating a "ghost train" was no longer feasible.

"From Friday it will no longer be in service," he announced in Toledo on Monday.

"Renfe feels the pain when we transport only steel," he said referring to the fact that only nine passengers on average used the route daily.

Instead passengers will have to change trains in Madrid, from which high-speed trains are already operating to the biggest three cities of Castilla-La Mancha. The journey time would increase from two hours and five minutes between Toledo and Albacete to two hours and 28 minutes.

The failed route, which costs 18,000 euros (£16,000) a day to operate, is one of a series of infrastructure "white elephants" that have sprung up in recent years across the Spanish landscape.

Castellon Airport, built at a cost of 150 million euros (£134 million) and inaugurated in March, has yet to receive its first scheduled flight. Mile upon mile of empty toll roads are running at a loss.

A large part of austerity measures introduced by the government of Jose Luis Rodriquez has been to drastically shrink public spending on infrastructure that burgeoned out of control during the country's boom years and sent its borrowing costs soaring as the economic crisis hit.

Since Spain opened its first bullet train connection between Madrid and Seville in 1992 it has become the operator of the largest high-speed network in Europe with more than 1,700 miles of track.

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(Agencies)

（中国日报网英语点津 Helen ）