#this whole post is nothing btw this is just my normal stream of conscience before going bed

[dugaodna]

one of the reasons italian and german high speed rail is far more integrated into the legacy network than in spain and japan is to do with gauge, that is to say that in the japanese case, it causes far too much disruption to upgrade the network to standard 4'8.5" gauge from narrow compared to building new standard lines when needed (hence the name - shinkansen = new trunk line) and in the spanish case it had a fucked network anyway and was pretty destitute but needed the network. so building in standard gauge as opposed to iberian broad gauge was better because then they could buy rolling stock from wherever (which they do - renfe and iryo are known for diverse rolling stock from using german velaros to etr1000s also used my trenitalia) which is good as a cost cutting measure and also as a futureproofing method - i mean look at the russian peterburg to moscow сапсан high speed train which was built to russian broad gauge. when they invaded ukraine, all that had to be done to severely endanger the line was for siemens to withdraw offer of new parts for the modified velaro sets that they ran - they had no alternatives to turn to and building a train takes years with all safety testing and everything. however none of this explains why france is like that. you have a standard gauge decent quality legacy network why is there barely any use of legacy lines for hs trains to smaller cities asshats. or maybe there is i know next to nothing about the lgv apart from the french insistence on using locomotive hsr for some reason and also the double decker alstom avelia family are the only bilevel high speed trains in the world that may be used on london-paris services at some point