The Pajares variant is due next November, unless something goes wrong again. Twenty-ninth of forty-three planned sections in Spain open to commercial traffic, according to the calculations of the Railway Infrastructure Manager (Adif). Because the plans of the Ministry of Transport indicate that there will be fourteen sections to be opened in 2024 and beyond, including the section between León and La Robla, which ends in the Variante tunnels and without which there would be no network to Asturias. missing
It has been 31 years and two weeks since the high-speed adventure that began in Spain on April 21, 1992.It carried out the first commercial voyage between Madrid and Sevilla, which required an investment of 3 billion 250 million Euros and was the longest line in Europe at that time with a length of 476 kilometers. Since then, a huge network of high-speed trains has spun across Spain. It currently covers 3,966.7 kilometers, making it the longest in Europe and second in the world, only after China. More than 57,000 million have been invested in high-speed lines so far in Spain, and Adif plans to spend an additional 23,500 million with European funds as leverage between ongoing work and planned projects in the coming years.
Prior to Asturias, high speed reached nine autonomous communities as final destination or intermediate stops: Andalusia and Castilla-La Mancha (1992), Castilla y León, Aragón and Cataluña (2003), Comunidad Valenciana (2010), Galicia (2011) , Murcia (2021) and Extremadura (2022). Four regions lacked high-speed service and will have it after Asturias: Cantabria, Basque Country, Navarra and La Rioja.
In the high-speed “race”, the “podium” after Madrid-Seville was occupied by the Madrid-Lérida and Zaragoza-Huesca divisions, both opened in 2003. They entered the “top ten”, Madrid-Toledo opened in 2005; Córdoba-Antequera and Lleida-Tarragona in 2006; Madrid-Valladolid and Antequera-Málaga in 2007; Tarragona-Barcelona in 2008 and Madrid-Valencia in 2010.
Asturias lost the “final run” with four sections whose construction continued for some time with those on the Bypass, but opened last year: the Chamartín-Atocha tunnel, Plasencia-Badajoz (first stage), Venta-Burgos from Baños and Beniel-Murcia. However, there are parts that are more behind than the Pajares variant.. To begin with, León-La Robla, which still has at least a year of work to do and thus cannot currently be classified as high-speed. in such a way that AVE will have to reach Asturias by advancing in both high-speed and conventional sections.
What is the current status of studies in León-La Robla? Adif’s most recent response to this question was that the main contract, which is the second phase of the runway renovation with an estimated budget of 21 million, and related actions, is in the “final draft stage”. Likewise, work is underway on another contract for the improvement of the safety barriers of the overpasses of the line, whose project is in the “development stage”. Adif stated that the budget will be defined “during the drafting process”.
In addition to León-La Robla, six more episodes are in production.: Tarragona-Vandellós and Castellón-Vandellós (both going to European size), Vitoria-Bilbao-Irún (Basque “Y”), Murcia-Almeria, Palencia-Santander and Plasencia-Badajoz (second stage). But there are seven more in the project or study: Toledo-Plasencia, Burgos-Vitoria, Zaragoza-Pamplona, Almeria-Granada, Orense-Vigo via Cerdedo, Orense-Lugo and Pamplona-Logroño. The government’s intention Pedro Sanchez not starting higher speed projects.