Page 18 - Vía Libre Special - 25 Years of Spanish High Speed Rail

SPECIAL

years of Spanish high speed rail

JAVIER LÓPEZ ORTEGA

Barcelona-Toulouse AVE in
the section operated by LFP.
Zaragoza, Lleida, Tarragona, Girona and Figueres,
and their respective hinterlands. But the benefits
are extended to other cities since the line also the northeast and southernmost ends of the
connects Madrid with the high speed corridors mainland.
of the north-northwest (Valladolid line), Levante At Zaragoza the line also links up with the
(Valencia and Alicante line), and South (Seville and Zaragoza–Huesca standard gauge high speed line.
Malaga lines). The full entry into service of the line This line is 78.6 kilometres long, with single track
heralded the completion of a corridor over 1,200 operation and 2x25Kv 50 Hz AC electrification, and
kilometres long, from Figueres to Malaga, linking has been in service since December 2003, when the
third rail was first used in a commercial rail service
in Spain. In the 57.7 kilometre stretch between
Zaragoza and the town of Tardienta, Huesca, a new
standard gauge track was laid parallel to the Iberian
gauge. In the 21.7 kilometres between Tardienta and
Huesca, a third rail was installed for the first time
ever on Iberian gauge track, with electrification at
25 kV AC.
At Tarragona the Madrid–Zaragoza–
Barcelona–French border line will also connect with
the Mediterranean Corridor and, thanks to the
gauge changer at Plasencia de Jalón, its benefits will
extend to La Rioja and Navarre. The line has bypasses
at Zaragoza and Lleida so as not to lengthen the
journey times of trains not scheduled to stop at the
stations of those two cities.
Another feature exclusive to this line is
GONZALO RUBIO its design enabling mixed passenger and freight
traffic on the section between Barcelona and the

On October 10, 2003 the 443 kilometre connection with France, providing the possibility
of setting up new services starting or ending at
long Madrid–Zaragoza–Lleida
high speed connection was opened. intermodal centres in France and other European
Puerta de Atocha Station. countries.

18 Vía Libre • Special 25th Anniversary of the AVE Edition