The Government of Aragón will present allegations to the informative study of the railway section between Teruel and Sagunto, submitted this Thursday to public information by the Ministry of Transport, to claim the construction of an electrified and high-performance double track instead of maintaining a single track conventional.
This was announced by the Director General of Transport, David Sánchez Fraile, who described the Ministry’s proposal as a «historic mistake» that, in his opinion, compromises the future of the Cantabrian-Mediterranean Corridor and the logistical and industrial development of Aragon.
THE GOVERNMENT SEES A «BOTTLENECK» IN THE CORRIDOR
During his appearance, Sánchez Fraile denounced the «lack of ambition and commitment» of the Ministry with an infrastructure that he considers strategic for the province of Teruel and for the competitiveness of Aragon. In this sense, he has criticized that, while the rest of the Cantabrian-Mediterranean Corridor is projected with electrified double track, the section between Teruel and Sagunto is limited to a lower capacity solution.
The general director recalled that this connection links Aragon with the port of Valencia, the first of Spain in freight traffic, and warned that maintaining a single track will generate an «unjustified» bottleneck in a key railway axis for national and international transport.
Sánchez Fraile explained that the current proposal limits the capacity of the line, makes it difficult for freight and passenger trains to circulate together and reduces the reliability of the service. On the other hand, he has defended that a double track would increase frequencies, eliminate capacity restrictions and prepare the corridor for the growth of rail traffic.
The regional government maintains that this infrastructure is essential to consolidate Aragon as one of the main logistics nodes in southern Europe thanks to its connection with the Zaragoza (Plaza) Logistics Platform. In addition, he considers that the improvement of the railway corridor would also contribute to combating the problem of depopulation.
