Page 102 - Vía Libre Special - 25 Years of Spanish High Speed Rail

historical album
brake van

Axles for bogies on the Madrid-Seville high speed line
(September 1990).

Construction of a bridge over a road, part of the
work on the AVE Madrid-Seville line at Brazatortas
(September 1990).

at Puertollano to tackle the construction of
what are the tightest curves of the Spanish
high speed network, limiting speed to 70 km/h.
Leaving Puertollano behind, the track once again Construction work on a tunnel at Brazatortas, one of
ran parallel to the conventional track in the the many that had to be bored as part of this great
direction of Badajoz for a short section, before feat of railway engineering (September 1990).
tackling Brazatortas and the passage through
the Sierra Morena mountains with its rugged
terrain which required squeezing wide radius turnouts allowing track changes at 160 km/h. It
curves into a less than favourable terrain, which included technical installations at strategic points
led to the construction of a large number of along the line to enable passing, crossovers and,
tunnels and viaducts. if necessary, passengers evacuation at facilities
A total of 8,356 metres ran on 32 elevated with platforms.
structures, the longest of which was the 928 On arrival at Cordoba the layout was
metre Ciudad Real viaduct, together with 17 lowered, bypassing the old 19th century station
tunnels, with a total length of 16 km, the longest and building a new semi-underground one. In
of which is the 2,500 metre long Piedras de la Sal Seville the entire rail network was reorganized
tunnel. The track was laid using 60 kilo rails with around the new station at Santa Justa, which

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