REUTERS: La obsesión de España con los trenes de alta velocidad topa con la realidad presupuestaria:

A one-track dirt road used by local farmers is the main access to a magnificent glass-and-steel train station in the small city of Villena, on Spain's latest high-speed rail route.

It is a spanking new 4,500 square meter building - essentially in the middle of nowhere.

The central government financed the rail route, inaugurated on Monday, between Madrid and Alicante on the Costa Blanca. The Valencia regional government was supposed to fund works to connect it to the nearby motorway and Villena, home to 35,000.

But it ran out of money, leaving the station high and dry.

The disconnect says a lot about both Spain and its current finances, about a love affair with grand projects to showcase its modernity and a diminishing ability to pay for them.

La última frase es demoledora.

Y es que, como escribía en Twitter Juan Manuel López Zafra, "El tiempo es oro, sí. Cada minuto de ahorro de tiempo a Alicante ha costado 38.400.000€ (6.390.000.000 pta). Somos muy grandes."

Enormes. Somos enormes.