'Corredor Mediterraneo' High Speed Train route assigned by 2013

THE complete stretch of the ‘Corredor Mediterraneo’ High Speed Train route through Almeria to Murcia will be assigned by 2013, the Ministry of Public Works has promised.

But despite the work going moving at a good pace, it is still unclear when residents in Almeria Province will be able to get a high speed train to Murcia.

The Undersecretary for the Ministry of Public Works, Jesus Miranda Hita, said it depends on how much money is assigned to the project in the coming General State Budgets, but the estimate for now is that it will be finished by 2016.

The Almeria-Murcia High Speed Train route will be 184.4 kilometres in total, of which 108 are in Almeria. There will be two stations in between, in Lorca (Murcia) and the Vera-Almanzora station in Almeria. Trains will be able to run at maximum speeds of 300kph.

Currently, only one of the 13 sections into which the route has been divided in the province hasn’t yet been assigned to a company for development. The rest are either in the stages of the project being written up, or have already started, and machinery can be seen at four sections, considered the most complicated in Los Arejos (between Sorbas and Lucainena de las Torres) and Vera.

Between the Alhamilla, Cabrera and La Atalaya mountains, the terrain is extremely difficult to work on, especially for infrastructures such as railways lines. 

However, these difficulties will be overcome with tunnels, bridges, viaducts and other engineering skills.

One of the most important parts is the 7.5-metre–long Sorbas tunnel which will go under Cabrera mountain and have a tunnel for each direction, of which the first is already finished and the second is underway and should be completed by January.

It will be the longest in Andalucia, beating the Abdalajis tunnel on the route between Malaga and Cordoba.

By Jennifer Leighfield
jennifer@euroweeklynews.com