Dec
13
The Secretary General of the Atlantic Axis said this week that he is convinced that in 2017 it will be possible to travel on high speed trains between Coruña, in northern Galicia (Spain) and the Algarve given the investment in and modernisation of the Minho train line.
Speaking after a meeting held by the cross-border association Atlantic Axis’s executive committee in Ourense, Galicia, its Secretary General Xoán Mao said the possibility comes after Portugal “confirmed” it would be investing €100 million in modernising and electrifying the Minho train line, as of 2014.
“The data we have from the Spanish government shows that at the beginning of 2015 the Galicia high-speed train track will be fully operational. On the Portuguese side, everything indicates that work on the Minho track will be complete by the end of 2016 and that tenders for the work are being launched at the beginning of the year”, Mao explained.
In Xoán Mao’s opinion the Portuguese investment, which will be partly footed by EU funds that are “already guaranteed”, represents the culmination of “pressures exercised” by the Eixo Atlântico association since 2010, when they argued the modernisation of the Minho line was an alternative to the Portuguese government’s decision to abandon plans for a high-speed train between Oporto and Vigo as well as a regular service that connected the two cities.
“The pressure we applied was worth it, at a time when the train had already been given a date for elimination. We believe in the completion of this work because there are funds available and the timeline is set, but we will be keeping an eye on it, monitoring the fulfilling of commitments so that the same thing doesn’t happen this time as what has happened with other projects”, he stressed.
Xoán Mao recalled that besides the high speed train line in Galicia, this new travel option will involve the electrification and modernisation of the Minho line, up to Viana do Castelo, starting in 2016 and up to the Valença border the year after.
The Atlantic Axis, an association that defends the interests of the 34 biggest cities in Northern Portugal and Galicia, estimates that after the conclusion of the modernisation of the Portuguese track, the journey between Oporto and Vigo could be done in 90 minutes, half the time it has been taking until now.
Train trips between Oporto and Coruña in the extreme north of Galicia will therefore be done in 160 minutes, via the high-speed network that exists in that region, Mao explained.
And therefore, he concluded, it will become possible to travel on high-speed trains between the northern and southern tips of the Iberian Peninsula, between the Algarve (Portugal) and Galicia, from the first half of 2017.
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