At seven past four in the afternoon, Alvia 10021 Pajares heads towards the southern mouth of the Variant’s west tube and exits the time warp eleven minutes later. The first high-speed train from Asturias to Madrid moved at two hundred kilometers per hour, reached 201 and emerged from the darkness, bidding farewell to the bends of the Pajares ramp, reverse trips towards Leon, accidents and storms. road and bus transfers. Nineteen different opening dates come and go between 2010 and 2023, and a huge extra cost that doubles the initial investment estimate. Waterways, rivers changing basins and slopes that threaten to fall onto the rails. 6,713 days in construction, all the changes of nineteen years and 4,000 million euros. This was the first time the inaugural train had done this, cutting the ribbon and opening an “iron road” at the end of which Pedro Sánchez also wanted to see “a solution that would justify the unjust isolation.” Madrid-Oviedo route in three hours and ten minutes and they ate the Cordillera from La Robla to Pola de Lena, and during these sixteen minutes they changed an hour and a half. It is the fastest movement that can be made by land between Asturias and Madrid, and in the protocol law in Oviedo, where the authorities have almost exhausted their capacity for metaphor, the president and the Government have decided in their own way that this end is another end. According to the principle, the “giant step that literally liberated the Cordillera” is also understood as “a hand extended to unite the territory of a country proud of its diversity”, a new beginning that opens Asturias to “new investments and opportunities”.
In the protocol convoy, the Head of Government, King Felipe VI and two hundred guests, including the Minister of Transport and three former ministers, as well as deputies and senators, businessmen and representatives from almost all walks of life, went from Madrid to Oviedo. Social, political and business life of Asturia. Whether in the carriages or at the trackside, everyone is trying to explain what exactly started today and expand the hopeful futuristic story of what Asturias needs to take advantage of everything that unfolds behind this open door to the future. We are on the eve of your birth anniversary Winston Churchill The number 149 and the reference to the “blood, sweat and tears” that made the British politician famous fit easily into the portrait of the road that was closed yesterday. A variant of Pajares.
The Alvia departed from platform 21 at Chamartín five minutes late, around half past one in the afternoon, with 237 passengers and a shuttle car in the nine carriages that made up the convoy. In the two following the locomotive, those from the “comfort” class or the former preferential class, the president, the King and the Minister of Transport Óscar Puente, who made his almost debut appearance, and the Principality’s president, Adrián Barbón, or the Development advisor, Alejandro Calvo. At León station, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, president of Castilla y León, joins a delegation that includes, among others, three of the nine Ministers of Development who witnessed the birth and growth of the business: socialists. Magdalena Alvarez and José Luis Ábalos, who directed from the booth, and the popular Íñigo de la Serna Melek González, A machinist, a native of Campomanes, also saw it all grow. Took the train to keep everything at home Manuel Campomanes, chief engineer, also from Lense and born in La Cobertoria.
Behind him arrive two hundred long lines of MPs, senators, businessmen, union members and Father Ángel in tourist-class cars. Mierense priest, founder and president of the NGO “Ambassadors of PeaceBefore boarding the train, he left a slogan that perhaps all the passengers could respond to: “Today, Asturias is the real Spain.” He even takes a photo with the ticket and states that he came to bless the train even though no one asked him.
On the day of the innovations, the train crew introduced a Spanish-style, dark blue gala cape over their uniforms, which they will wear on very special occasions from now on. The train left one end of Chamartín. It is immersed in long redevelopment works and will gradually consume the known acreage of the section between Madrid and Leon, the only high-speed railway that passengers on the train from Madrid to Asturias have ever known. Gray in the capital, slightly sunnier on the Castilian Plateau, the day will turn sullen as the train progresses for miles north, until it turns into one of those dense, almost impenetrable foggy afternoons where even the Pajares ramp turns into a midnight. tunnel. However, the passengers of this train, which will make that journey underground today, will never know what the weather is like today on the old railway line of the port. Neither they nor those who take the long-distance train from tomorrow.
On pure AVE, Meseta’s standard gauge line, the train moves at 249 kilometers per hour, the highest speed it will reach during the entire journey. Only available in LeonReceiving the guest delegation that completed the expedition led by Fernández Mañueco and the King and Pedro Sánchez receiving them and taking a family photo with them.
The train passed the only gauge changer on the route just before León station, and soon, all this will no longer be an ordinary journey. It was already two hours from Madrid to Leon. Now, where the usual traveler musters the courage to face 49 kilometers of very steep ascent and descent, consisting of 65 tunnels, at speeds not exceeding 75 kilometers per hour, the mouth of a large tunnel appears, which places Campomanes at an unusual sixteen minutes from La La. Robla. The passengers of this special train participated in the passage of the 25-kilometer main tube of the Variant because they were themselves. A screen that explains everything in real time. Mounted at the front of the locomotive, it retransmitted the moment to all cars, although the service was in principle only for yesterday. It will not be maintained. On the rail route from Asturias to Madrid, in these early days of the Variant, everything will be much more traditional, at least until the first quarter of next year, and probably in February, until the long-awaited “Avril” trains are introduced. Renfe draws attention with its high-speed and mobile wheels, increased comfort features and in-car attention.
Currently, the seventh longest tunnel in Europe took place yesterday, as they were tasked with advertising a screen at the platform entrance, other people inside the carriages and the huge monitor that presides over the tent set up at the Oviedo station. From isolation to Asturias in eleven minutes. While this was happening outside, the debate about the high-speed train that Asturias had been continuing for months was continuing in the wagons. The impressive manner of speaking of business representatives leaves no doubt about the need to “set the machine in motion”, summarizes the president of the Oviedo Chamber of Commerce: Carlos Paniceres.
He talks about frequencies, prices, low-cost Renfe trains, activating “all possible mechanisms so that this infrastructure has an economic return” and announces, among many other things, a joint promotional strategy for the ski resorts of Asturias and Leon.
his counterpart in Avilés asks: “at least” twice the single-day frequency Planned from Villa del Adelantado. Here we talk at separate times about the celebrations, about hopes and strategies to make the most of everything, about the time passing and what should have happened… “There will be a before and after,” says Magdalena Álvarez confidently during her remote tenure (2004-2008 ) minister who opens the rock to allow passage of tunneling machines underneath. Popular Íñigo de la Serna (2016-2018) sees “the starting point of a horizon of hope” A better future for Asturias” and José Luis Ábalos (2018-2021), turning to the turbulent history of this very changing business, reflects on the ups and downs of opening dates and admits: “If I was wrong, it was because I listened to the technicians.” ,” Throughout history also “according to political or electoral interests There were also many opening dates set.
Ábalos spent time visiting Asturian representative Adriana Lastra, who was traveling in the back of three cars, and admitted that although she had been a minister for nearly three years, this was the first grand opening event she had attended. “I didn’t want it,” she says. Passengers a Thrifty lunch based on sausages, cheese, smoked meats and fruitand the train covered the miles with a speed that was more surprising to Asturians familiar with the Pajares ramp than to foreigners unaccustomed to passing along the old nineteenth-century route.
Everything is slowing down Lena’s Polaslow down under the face, they pass Ujo and Mieres and suddenly, at quarter to five in the afternoon, just three hours and ten minutes after takeoff, the Oviedo station is announced.
The major corporate action that follows delves into the metaphor of what it means to overcome the resistance of the mountain and the benefits that await on the other side of the tunnels. The Minister of Public Works speaks in a tent chaired by a giant screen: Óscar Puente, whom the presenter mistakenly called Carlos; Presidents of the Principality and Castilla y León and head of Government. They were greeted with bagpipes and a protest focused on Pedro Sánchez, whose echoes filtered into the tent, including the national anthem.
While the chief executive refused to seek excuses for the delays, Adrián Barbón expressed his “gratitude to the State” for opening the tunnels and “breaking the mental fence that gripped us” during a long period of “secularism”. Isolation” and his Castilian-Leonese counterpart Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, the PP’s only representative among the socialist leaders, celebrated that “the doors of the future have been opened to us” and then secretly stated that “the doors of the future have been opened to us”. Unity, equality and freedom of all Spaniards”. Puente considered “an unprecedented challenge that takes us from the 19th century to the 21st century in one fell swoop” and saw that with trains come “more job opportunities for citizens” and “more incentives for companies and tourism.”
Alvia cabin full of “career awards” and Lenenses
Manuel Campomanes “did not think” he would receive this award, but the fame he assumed yesterday at the premiere of Variante de Pajares could well serve as a “career reward”. The head of the train drivers in Renfe is a “son of the railway”, sixty years old and born in La Cobertoria (Lena), who did not expect to be elected – “many people want to enjoy it” – but was able to do so yesterday. Collaborating at the railway general assembly Lenenses in the cabin of Variante’s first Alvia. He shared this with Ángel González, a natural rider from Campomanes, whom he supervised during the tour. Campomanes and González were visited by King Felipe VI and other major authorities traveling in the inaugural convoy of the Asturian high-speed route. The duo will go down in history with photographs of the route that symbolizes the opening of the most complex railway project ever built in Spain.