Extremadura, the province of Almería and the city of Teruel struggle daily to stop being "railroad islands" as they are isolated by rail due to the lack of communications with other municipalities and the absence of quality trains. The associations that try to make this problem visible have stopped demanding major changes in the face of a situation that has lasted a long time, and are generally asking for effective trains, modern tracks and more rail connections.
The autonomous community of Extremadura is one of the most mistreated Spanish regions in this area, since it only has a direct rail connection with Seville and Madrid, and its trains frequently suffer serious incidents. The spokesman for the collective in defense of the 'Milana Bonita' train, Juan Carlos López, assures EFE that from this platform they do not ask for too much, since they do not demand "super high-speed trains", but simply "decent trains".
“We are a railway island, but with some impressive aggravations. They bring us trains that have done all their work in other regions, and when they get on the track they smoke and burn or their brakes don't work. We are in a distressing situation, ”he adds. According to López, the trains that arrive in Extremadura are "waste" from other autonomous communities, which are also in poor condition, "without air conditioning or without heating", with "broken bathrooms" or "leaks", and circulate through roads that “are from the 19th century”.
In fact, these roads are not electrified, so the Alvia that connects Badajoz with Madrid (inaugurated last July and surrounded by controversy due to the long delays of the first trips) has not advanced "much more than half an hour" the journey.
The coordinator of the Table in Defense of the Railway in Almería, José Carlos Tejada, says that this province is also a "railway island" as it only has a direct link with Granada and Madrid and has lost connections with other cities such as Barcelona or Seville in recent years. years. In addition, the only train that leaves from Almería to Madrid makes a journey of more than six hours, and the works of the AVE, scheduled for 2026, have suffered so many delays that Tejada no longer has "high hopes" in the project.
“There are three years left until 2026 and there are sections in Almería, such as the viaduct that passes over the Andarax River or the false Juaida tunnel in Viator, where construction has not yet begun. We have our doubts because we do not see that the platforms where the tracks are going to be placed are being built”, adds the coordinator of the Roundtable in Defense of the Railroad in Almería.
Likewise, the man from Almería denounces that the second Talgo at noon towards Madrid has not been recovered, and assures that there is an "unacceptable" opposition from Renfe on this issue, because "the trains are in garages raising dust, and could be operational for a long time."
The only capital of a peninsular province of Spain without a rail connection with Madrid is Teruel, and, like Extremadura and Almería, it only has direct links with two cities: Valencia and Zaragoza. The spokesman for Teruel Existe, Manolo Gimeno, is surprised that, despite the fact that the city is "located among the four major centers of development in the country" (Madrid, Navarra, Catalonia and the Basque Country), it is "isolated" from the rest of Spain.
Although the politician acknowledges that currently there are not many incidents on the trains because the ones that exist are good, he denounces that the tracks were designed in the 19th century and that neither the curves nor the slopes have been corrected, nor is it electrified. Regarding the AVE, the spokesperson for this party assures that a single track was built in Teruel that "supposedly" was high-speed, but in which "there are two important sections where the average speed does not reach 70 kilometers per hour."
