SPAIN: The Ministry of Transport announced on January 8 that the Subdirectorate General for Railway Planning had on December 30 granted definitive approval for the ‘Informative Study’ covering construction of the high speed line between Burgos and Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Publication of the Study gives interested parties the opportunity to comment on or object to the selected route. Further planning stages including detailed design will follow before tenders are called for construction of the trackbed.
Construction cost of the 93∙9 km line is estimated at €1∙2bn.To be built solely for passenger traffic, the 1 435 mm gauge double-track alignment will have a design speed of 350 km/h. Journey times between Burgos and Vitoria-Gasteiz will be around 30 min, but the location of Burgos Rosa de Lima station north of the city means that additional time will be needed to travel to and from the centre.
Selection of the route followed an environmental impact statement that assessed two other alignments. One would have followed the N1 Madrid – Irún main road and the AP1 motorway and the other would have run close to the existing railway further south.
The line will be built in two sections: Burgos to Pancorbo and Pancorbo to Vitoria. The chosen alignment will traverse the municipalities of Temiño, Rojas, los Rublacedos and Vileña, passing well to the west of Briviesca, the only significant centre of population between Burgos and Miranda de Ebro. Two tunnels will be needed under the Sierra de Ubierna: the La Carrasquilla tunnel will be 1 846 m long and the Rublacedo tunnel will be shorter at 1 202 m.
From Pancorbo the line will descend to the Ebro valley near Miranda de Ebro. The 3 896 m Pancorbo tunnel will take the railway under the Montes Obarenes, after which there will be a sequence of viaducts and shorter tunnels, including a 1 095 m long viaduct over the N1 and a 1 000 m viaduct spanning the River Ebro. Two 995 m parallel single-track structures will carry the line over the Bayas River and the AP68 motorway, and three more tunnels will follow between Miranda and Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Care will have to be taken near Burgos to avoid damage to the remains of the Hispania – Aquitania and the Italia – Hispania Roman roads. Archaeological reports indicate that the railway will have a considerable impact and that some damage will be inevitable.
Once complete, the Burgos – Vitoria line will represent the final section of a high speed route stretching right across Spain from the French border at Irún/Hendaye to Madrid and Andalucía. It is intended to form part of the TEN-T Atlantic Corridor, which suggests that the existing 1 668 mm gauge main line will have to be dual-gauged to enable seamless freight flows between France and ports in northwest Spain and Portugal.
No timescale has been set for this, and similar considerations apply to other sections of high speed line further west such as the 89 km from Burgos to Venta de Baños which is due to be opened later this year following conclusion of test running using ETCS Level 2. This section was used for high speed trials with RENFE’s first Talgo Avril set which attained 363 km/h on May 31 2021. Transport Minister Raquel Sánchez said in early November last year that the section would open ‘in the next few months’.
Progress with the northernmost segments of the ‘Basque Y’ linking Vitoria-Gasteiz with Bilbao and San Sebastián remains slow, not least because of political sensitivities. Construction began in 2006, but recent forecasts suggest that it will not be completed until 2027.
In December last year central government agreed that the Basque regional government will assume responsibility for building the city centre access sections of the Basque Y in both Bilbao and Vitoria. In return the Basque government will lend its support for the 2022 general state budget.
