Page 36 - Vía Libre Special - 25 Years of Spanish High Speed Rail

SPECIAL

years of Spanish high speed rail

ADIF Southern portal of the Sotiello tunnel
on the Pajares bypass.

th-northwest high speed corridor and forms the The track bed work is completed for all sec-
central axis of the high speed line which will link tions, except for the Sotiello-Campomanes section
the Autonomous Regions of Castile and Leon and on which work is in progress to complete the line.
Asturias through the Pajares tunnels. This includes all the work required to stabilize slo-
The construction of these tunnels, formed by pes in the PAET (passing and stabling siding) area of
two 24.6 km long parallel bores, was the most tech- Campomanes.
nically complex project and the greatest engineering The work is at a very advanced stage of com-
challenge of all the high speed works carried out in pletion at the southern end of the bypass, where the
our country. In addition to these engineering works, track laying work is nearly finished (27 km of track
it was also necessary to extend the lines onwards to have already been laid, using ballastless track inside
La Robla (Leon) and Pola de Lena (Asturias). the Pajares tunnels). Other work, such as electrifica-
Along the route there are as many as twel- tion, complementary civil works inside the tunnels ,
ve tunnels and fourteen viaducts, among which we safety and communications equipment, GSM-R mo-
would highlight the 269 metre long Alba viaduct, and bile telecommunications installations, and noise pro-
the 396 metre long Huergas viaduct. tection screens, is ongoing.

Vitoria-Bilbao-San Sebastián-French

border high speed line

Known as the “Basque Y”, the line will interconnect in length, through advance payments of the cupo
the three Basque provincial capital cities and, at a la- (the annual amount paid for services provided by the
ter date, will be linked up to the rest of the high speed central government) which will later be reimbursed
network at Burgos. With a total length of around 172 by the central government. The line is 80% competed.
km, responsibility for its construction is shared be- Recently the central and Basque governments
tween Adif, which is in charge of the construction of reached an agreement to develop a high speed rail
the 90.2 km long branch between Vitoria and Bilbao, access to the Basque provincial capital cities and
together with the connection with Guipúzcoa via the build new stations.
Vergara junction, and the Basque government, which The work on installing a third rail between
will fund the construction of the Vergara to San Se- Astigarraga and Irún in Guipúzcoa has already be-
bastián branch in Guipúzcoa, approximately 80 km gun. This will connect the high speed network with

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