In 2000, then-Prime Minister José María Aznar López, leader of the conservative People's Party, set the goal of bringing every provincial capital to within four hours of Madrid with high-speed rail lines, Bel said.

"There was cheap money, a booming economy," he said. "No financial restrictions, nice tax revenues because of all the housing being built. ... Great times. Who cares?

"So here comes the prime minister, who says every province capital will have this connection with the capital," Bel added. "No matter the need, we have the money."

But that was before the economy turned sour.

Re-examining expansion plans

"There has been political agreement among the main parties to go on with the high-speed lines," said Juan Ignacio Campo Jori, director of international projects for ADIF, a government-owned company that owns the high-speed train tracks and manages the rest of the nation's rails. "But maybe we have to go slow on the level of investments because of the economic situation in the country, in Europe and the world."

The PSOE party lost in Spain's November elections, with the People's Party regaining control of the government.

"Maybe the change of the government will change priorities to say, 'OK, better than to finish one section, we are going to finish another instead,' " Campo Jori said, waving at a map of future extensions. "Rather than finish in 2015, maybe it's 2017 or 2020 instead."

A go-slow mood may be taking hold among the Spanish public, too. Several AVE passengers at stations in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia and Seville questioned the cost of rapid expansion.

"At this moment, the economy is very weak," said Manuel Diaz, a Madrid retiree traveling to the Mediterranean coastal city of Malaga for a vacation. "Probably, it's time to slow down the construction."

Arriving in Valencia from Madrid for work, franchise businessman Arturo Holguin said he enjoys riding the AVE trains but worries about the cost.

"We have built a lot of kilometers of railway, but none have been very successful," Holguin said. "It's very important to have a very good study before you build the stuff because it's very, very expensive. If you don't have a minimum number of passengers, you're going to lose money."

Other passengers acknowledged the high cost but said high-speed trains have been a good investment for the nation.

"It is a wonderful feeling of becoming modernized so soon," Ulied said of the public sentiment. "The experience of using the high-speed train when you used to use the bus or a poor railway, the difference is amazing. So the people are very happy, still very happy."

Ulied tried to describe the public sentiment: "The general public, they don't have the feeling that the money spent is coming from us. We don't have this American point of view that the money the government has spent is 'our' money. ... They have this feeling that if these crazy investments are not happening in my region, they will happen in another region."

This special project is the result of a partnership among California news organizations following the state’s high-speed rail program, including The Fresno Bee, The Bakersfield Californian, California Watch, The Sacramento Bee, The Orange County Register, the San Francisco Chronicle, The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise, U-T San Diego, KQED, the Merced Sun-Star, The Tribune of San Luis Obispo and The Modesto Bee.