People Power in Spain - reopen an old north-south line

[farci]

SEVILLA is among dozens of Spanish cities and towns that will stage simultaneous rallies this Saturday (November 4) calling for the reopening of the Ruta de la Plata train line. The route linking Gijon in the north with Sevilla in the south closed its passenger service in 1985, with freight trains stopping 11 years later as the Plascencia-Astorga section ceased to operate.

Is this sort of public support which helped the rail network has grown so effectively for freight and passengers?

https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-...ndalucia-spain/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss

 

[yorksrob]

Well done for them and their coordinated action across towns and cities.

Perhaps we need some here for the visibility of our reopening needs.

Best of luck to them.

 

[nwales58]

Notwithstanding the media interest and an excited Viajando Contigo video, would this really be a good use of limited public investment?

Can someone please explain where the modern day latent freight and passenger demand is please? Compare with how many billions to reinstate the route to modern standards?

Seville-Extremadura supports ... Umm ... 2 x 3-coach MDs per day, say 350 seats.Caceres-Oviedo looks like 2 coaches, 80-odd seats daily. The A-66 north of Plasencia was rather lacking in traffic the one time I used it a few years ago.

Speeding up and actually finishing work on, e.g., modernising Bobadilla-Algeciras or even the Lorca-Almeria gamble comes miles ahead of a direct rail link Plasencia-Leon. ADIF has too many pots not quite on the boil as it is.

 

[Gostav]

would this really be a good use of limited public investment?

For Japan's experience - that need localities to pay (most of) funding for rebuild/maintain such branch railway operations, no money - no railways. Localities will own the lines and have the option of A. operating their own trains. B. Give operating to large railway companies.

If the opening of the line can makes it a usable route for traffic from other areas, the localities can gain revenue from freight and through train traffic.

 

[Austriantrain]

Knowing Spain, it would be a 300 km/h high speed line with 4 to 5 train pairs a day…

 

[stuu]

Knowing Spain, it would be a 300 km/h high speed line with 4 to 5 train pairs a day…

Absolutely... hard to see where the demand would come from. End to end is quicker via Madrid, and will always be more frequent. Extremadura makes Central Wales look like Tokyo, its called Empty Spain for a reason

 

[30907]

Absolutely... hard to see where the demand would come from. End to end is quicker via Madrid, and will always be more frequent. Extremadura makes Central Wales look like Tokyo, its called Empty Spain for a reason

Anyone know how busy the throughout motorway on this route is?

 

[stuu]

Anyone know how busy the throughout motorway on this route is?

The highest is less than 15k vehicles per day, some sections are below 7k. You can view traffic on this link:

ArcGIS Web Application

mapas.fomento.gob.es

 

[185]

It was another non-Madrid line closed down in the eighties, perhaps similar to UK governments since the 60s who mostly don't care about non-London routes.

 

[Austriantrain]

It was another non-Madrid line closed down in the eighties, perhaps similar to UK governments since the 60s who mostly don't care about non-London routes.

It is certainly sad that the route closed, but that is different from rebuilding it new.

As to the remainder (Mérida - Sevilla/Huelva), what it would need is what Spain is utterly incapable of: slow and decent modernization and a slow build-up of the timetable.

 

[farci]

It was another non-Madrid line closed down in the eighties, perhaps similar to UK governments since the 60s who mostly don't care about non-London routes.

I bow to the experts who advise this reopening would be poor use of public funds.

But has development of the high-speed passenger network raised expectations for non-high speed rural lines? Joined-up rail journeys where the Spanish government '(...has spent) around €57.2bn in building its network, with one in four euros coming from EU funding..). This article from the Guardian discusses the expectations of rail users.

The development of standard gauge passenger railways has also stimulated development of rail freight services from Barcelona etc to service containers from Maersk destined for French ports - https://www.railfreight.com/railfre...ew-rail-links-with-three-french-destinations/

 

[nwales58]

Farci: yes, there are non high speed corridors in Spain where upgrading and even new construction is likely to be good value for money.

But for me it is desperately sad that effort is spent on routes that will never happen and that people's hopes are falsely raised when, if you explain to them the basics of demand (current and possibly generated) versus cost, it is clear effort is better spent elsewhere. A part of my working life was evaluating infrastructure projects so I can look back at 40-50 years of success and failure. Much of what Spain has built since 1986, motorways, high speed rail and urban transport really has added value to the economy although with over-enthusiasm e.g. in the empty spaces, as you know, diverting investment that would have been better spent elsewhere.

So on the conventional network upgrading Zaragoza-Teruel-Valencia to increase freight capacity and reduce journey times is valuable. Similarly Algeciras-Bobadilla and most of the Mediterranean Corridor. By contrast, the idea of Sines-Badajoz-rest of europe, despite its early TEN-T status, was always a triumph of politics over reason.

The people of Seville will get more direct benefit by pressurising MITMA (=DfT), ADIF (=NR) and the region to accelerate work that is already planned with sustained investment (yes, it seems better than it used to be, from outside at least) and not get distracted. Look at how long Cadiz tram took. How long was Antequera without a functioning station, let alone the rest of the route? Why was Huelva-Zafra modernisation started instead of increasing effort on Algeciras, and so on. And please, please divert any Huesca-Canfranc money somewhere more than a few thousand people will actually benefit!

End of rant.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

One of the sights on a 2014 trip I did across Spain, was a section of high speed line apparently starting and ending in the middle of nowhere.
This roughly paralleled the slow and winding single-track route between Seville and Bobadilla (used by MD trains to Malaga).
So rail planning in Spain had produced this useless section of new route, whose viaducts terminated in ski-jump fashion in empty fields.
I think it was intended to be part of a Seville-Bobadilla-Granada line, but only the Granada line got fully built.
Even then, Renfe only operates a very thin service over the Granada and other new HSL lines which have been largely constructed as single track (with scope for doubling in the future).
I suspect the western section is still incomplete 10 years on.
Spain was also spending EU money (no doubt the UK was involved in that) which funded major infrastructure projects in Spain.

Spain has improved classic lines in some areas, Galicia being one.
The old and winding main line Vigo-Santiago-A Coruna-Ferrol has been significantly upgraded, with some new sections, as well as being connected by HSL via Ourense to Madrid.
Much is expected similarly of the "Basque Y" in the northeast, when it opens at the end of this decade, which is a mix of new HSL and upgraded classic lines.

 

[stuu]

That's the Andulusian Transversal - Seville-Granada. Built by the provincial government, rather than the national administration, they ran out of money before building the difficult section into Seville so it is abandoned, although part of the classic line has been moved onto it.

 

[nwales58]

And decades later a chord between the Sevilla LAV and Malaga LAV is about to be built near Almodovar del Rio so some Avants no longer have to reverse at Cordoba.

 

[Jamesrob637]

And decades later a chord between the Sevilla LAV and Malaga LAV is about to be built near Almodovar del Rio so some Avants no longer have to reverse at Cordoba.

Cordoba isn't far though - that'll probably gain 20min max.

 

[30907]

Cordoba isn't far though - that'll probably gain 20min max.

True, but that's a 15% cut in journey time.

 

[Austriantrain]

True, but that's a 15% cut in journey time.

It just would be a lot more interesting if RENFE actually managed to run decent frequencies and connections. At the moment, all of 8 train pairs a day (5 Málaga, 3 Granada) would profit, so it’s barely worth the investment.

Arranging timetables for connections in Córdoba would be much more beneficial for everyone than a slight reduction of journey time on very few services.

But then RENFE does not even manage to run a train from Granada on the brand new HSL towards Córdoba from 7am to early afternoon. Ridiculous.

 

[nwales58]

OTOH the Galicia LAV now has 10 trains per day, formerly 1 day + 1 night train from memory. Massive success, relatively. Just don't ask about the cost.

Ourense station is now so busy that it is proposed to expand it from 5 platforms to something around the size of Crewe. To handle 25-30 trains per day per direction. Admittedly future HS open access might add up to another 5 or so services daily. Again, just don't ask about the cost.

 

[Austriantrain]

OTOH the Galicia LAV now has 10 trains per day, formerly 1 day + 1 night train from memory. Massive success, relatively. Just don't ask about the cost.

At least there is a public value in the line and the timetable is now actually usable (unlike the A Coruna - Vigo line, which for a rather densely settled piece of land has a timetable that is a joke; coupled with the mandatory reservation it's just an absurdity.)

Ourense station is now so busy that it is proposed to expand it from 5 platforms to something around the size of Crewe. To handle 25-30 trains per day per direction. Admittedly future HS open access might add up to another 5 or so services daily. Again, just don't ask about the cost.

This is absurd too. Unfortunately, Spain does not know how to run a railway.

 

[Gordon]

This proposal is pointless IMHO. The route in question is not a single route but a whole collection of sectiosn of railway built at various times over decades, so it can't be said that 'it lost it freight trains' in a particular year. The itinerary is one of the secondary north south axes in Spain that traverses very sparsely populated regions. Asturias to Sevilla is easily acheived nowadays by high speed trains via Madrid