Tarragona has been demanding for years the detour of freight trains inland, away from population centers and tourist areas. One part, with dangerous materials, circulating day and night along the Costa Daurada. Freight trains share the tracks with passenger trains. A demand more important than ever due to the European Union's commitment to rail and rail highways as an alternative to trucks, with the Government's commitment to doubling rail freight transport in the next decade: it is now below 5%.
After years of meetings and contacts, the Mercaderies per l’Interior Platform has achieved an almost total political, economic and social consensus in the Tarragona area for an alternative route to take goods off the coastal railway line.
The territory puts more pressure than ever on the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, which has had a feasibility study on the table for months to find the best route through the interior. The three solutions explored by Madrid so far are not to the liking of the platform, which is committed to its own layout (see infographic).
The calendar plays against Tarragona. The increase in freight rail traffic poses a real threat of collapse in the short and medium term for a line on which many passenger trains also circulate, especially regional ones that connect the metropolitan area of Tarragona, the second largest in Catalonia, with the from Barcelona.
“Freight traffic will increase by 250% in the coming years, the road will collapse. They will pass along the same coastline, through Vila-seca, Tarragona, Altafulla or Torredembarra, through the third thread. Regional and commuter trains and Iberian gauge freight circulate from the central line and the coastal line,” warns Eugeni Sedano, spokesperson for the citizen platform.
In the section between Tarragona and Sant Vicenç de Calders, enormous saturation could occur in just five years, some experts estimate, and it could become a railway black spot.
The Mediterranean corridor freight line will provisionally use what is known as the third thread, an emergency solution still in the works, promoted by the Government on the already existing railway line to be able to run international gauge trains towards Europe.
If the inland route is prolonged, which the platform proposes parallel to expressways such as the C-14 or the AP-7, the main municipalities of the Costa Daurada fear that more and more longer freight trains will circulate alongside its urban centers: Tarragona, Altafulla or Torredembarra.
The passage of dangerous goods trains along the coastline is a notable nuisance, as well as a danger, for residents of neighborhoods such as Serrallo or clients of campsites on the Tarragona coast, close to the tracks. It is also an obstacle for new urban plans and infrastructure projected on the Costa Daurada. The obligation to respect safety strips of 800 meters from the roads, under the supervision of Civil Protection, represents a burden in the case of new works.
“The transport of goods along the coast is a problem and affects us as a territory,” highlights Àngel Xifré, delegate of the Generalitat in Tarragona. “And there is a risk of railway collapse, we have to look for an alternative in the interior,” he agrees.
The Government is promoting one of the railway highways between Zaragoza, Lleida and Tarragona, with the tender announced at the beginning of 2024. It is the one with the highest demand in the railway network, with one hundred weekly circulations in each direction, with future connections from Algeciras, Huelva or Vitoria .
Meanwhile, Spanish businessmen continue to press for the Mediterranean corridor to be completed as soon as possible to France. More freight and passenger trains along a coastline threatened by collapse.
Knowing that the interior route is up in the air and that it could take a decade to complete, the port of Tarragona tells this newspaper that they will now study an alternative "to prevent freight trains from passing in front of the city and the Serrallo neighborhood”, as is happening now.
“The future is in railway highways, but Adif is doing it on obsolete tracks and with harm to neighbors and passengers. What will happen to commuter trains if they also want to increase the frequency?” warns Sedano. For the platform “it is a question of political will”; They estimate that the investment would be ten million for each of the 40 kilometers of a new route that “would finally take goods out of all towns.”
