>>1080910Well, in Spain steam ended late because the country was poor as shit after almost four decades of dictatorship. The "spanish miracle" of the 1950's-60's was little more than a fiction, a collateral effect of the general improvement of the european economy in the 1950's.
And after the dictatorship came the bubble economies and generalized corruption which led to the building of the second largest and most idiotic HSR system in the world.
What do you mean by branch lines? There's the occasional secondary line, but in general the spanish rail system isn't very dense, pic related. Also many lines with low traffic were closed in the 1970's-80's because the government since then (and until today) wanted to favour the sale of cars and trucks.
