Madird-London Rail link in 8 Hours

By 2012 it will be possible to travel by rail from London to Madrid in just eight hours.

Or at least that's the plan - by means of a five hour rail journey from Madrid to Paris and then a further three hours via the Eurostar to London, and comes as France and Spain have agreed jointly to create a rail company to build the train which will link the two capitals.

The Times reports that the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and his French counterpart, François Fillon, have given the go ahead to the plan.

The new rail company will be run jointly 50/50 by the Spanish RENFE and the French SNCF although the headquarters are to be in Spain. RENFE expects to invest 300 million dollars in the purchase of new trains for the route.

The only current glitch that could delay things is the AVE high speed link from Barcelona to Figueras on the French border which is still under construction