The Council of Ministers will authorize this Tuesday the construction of the new through station at Puerta de Atocha. This work will allow "to complete the total connection of the northern half and the southern half of the high-speed network in Spain", as announced by the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, during her speech at the conference "Present and future of mobility ” organized by La Vanguardia at the Monteverdi club in Madrid, where the president of Renfe has also explained that the company has already opened a branch in Lyon to start operating in France.
With this action, the main station in the Spanish capital will gain capacity by having four new tracks where trains will be able to stop even if their route does not end there. In this way, it will offer more possibilities for travelers on corridors such as the one in Valencia, which now leave from Chamartín and with the through station will also have a stop in Atocha, thus responding to the complaints of travelers and new private operators who have joined Renfe's offer in recent months.
Travelers from Barcelona may also benefit from avoiding trips to Chamartín when they are forced to go through the center of Spain to go to Burgos or Santiago de Compostela, to give two examples.
After the approval of the Council of Ministers, the works – under the responsibility of the railway infrastructure administrator (Adif) – will go out to public tender for an amount close to 500 million euros and an execution period of about five years.
Sánchez's announcement comes at a time when the Government defends that it "invests more in conventional rail and Cercanías than in high speed" after many years of the reverse situation. The disinvestment of the last two decades is evident with the constant incidents suffered lately by the Madrid suburban service, where the issue has become a matter of political debate just as it has been in Rodalies de Catalunya for years.
