Just two speeds, slow and stop, well it may seem like that sometimes in Tenerife, but major transport projects have been making steady progress in recent years. The Santa Cruz tram system has been a great success and after many years of idling in the sidings, the great north to south train link looks more positive, with detailed plans announced. Hot on the rails of that comes news of a possible seaplane link between Santa Cruz and Las Palmas, Gran Canaria.

So lets dig into those new plans for the proposed train link. I always thought it would hardly be worth it to shave a few minutes of the trip, but 40 minutes from Santa Cruz to Las Americas starts to sound like a good argument. The 80 km run has been costed at 1,800 million euros and would travel up to 220 kms per hour and includes 7 stops, Santa Cruz, Anaza, Candelaria, San Isidro, Reina Sofia airport, Los Cristianos and Las Americas, eventually it could be extended to Torviscas and even to Fonsalia on the west coast to link to a propsed new ferry port.

Ready for some more stats, the trains would run every 15 minutes, carry 350 to 400 passengers a train, go through 9 tunnels and for large parts of the journey, would run underground. All pretty ambitious, and even with a 2017 boarding date for the first trip, they would need to get cracking pretty soon, we can but hope.

How about a seaplane jaunt from Santa Cruz to Las Palmas? A Canadian company are keen to start trips as soon as next year, with only 20 passengers , it would be a more specialist form of transport, maybe for business people using the 2 capital cities. The plane used would be a DHC-6 Series 300 Twin Otter (pic above) and as well as fast tracking passengers, it could be used to fight forest fires, sloshing 1,000 litres on the flames in one swoop.

As always in Tenerife, it’s best not to count your chickens before they are roasted, but maybe unlike the inventions we were promised on  Tomorrows World, these transport dreams could come true, hold on tight.