Construction for rail access to Port of Castellon is underway
Spain is working on connecting the Port of Castellon, between Valencia and Barcelona, to the TEN-T Mediterranean Corridor. Construction work for the first section of the new railway line, only dedicated to rail freight, has officially begun.
This initiative entails the construction of 4,7 kilometres of railway line stretching from the Mediterranean Corridor to the location of the future intermodal terminal. Both the line and the facility are expected to be commissioned in 2026. For this part of the project, 123,5 million euros were allocated.
The New South Rail Access to the Port of Castellon
This new railway section, also known as Section I, is part of the so-called New South Rail Access, which will include the port of Castellon in the Mediterranean Corridor. The whole line, a single track and mixed gauge, will be 8,3 kilometres long. This will enable the port to handle trains of up to 750 metres.
The remaining 3,6 kilometres of track, christened Section II, will connect the intermodal station to the port. For this, the estimated costs are set by Adif at 159,7 million. The Spanish infrastructure manager will cover 86,8 million euros, while the Castellon Port Authority (APC) will fund the remaining 72,9 million. As Adif specified, most of the financing will come from the NextGenerationEU via the Recovery and Resilience Facility.
The Castellon intermodal terminal
The intermodal facility at Castellon will cover an area of 300,000 square metres and is expected to welcome 40 trains every week, for a total of 90,000 TEUs every year. APC highlighted that one of the sectors that might benefit the most from this project is the ceramic industry. “97 per cent of the ceramic industry will be less than 40 kilometres from the facility”, they claimed. Moreover, it will open up new opportunities for the chemical and energy sector, which is also quite present in the area around the port.
The new intermodal terminal will boost the shift from road to rail. “A good part of the 3,7 million tons of goods per year that are delivered from Castellón (…) that are now distributed by road, can be located by rail, lowering logistics costs for companies from Castellón”, APC pointed out. the Port Authority also said that, according to their studies, 39 per cent of the intermodal traffic at the station will come via sea through the port, while 61 per cent will come from land transportation. The investment for the construction of the new intermodal facility at the port of Castellon revolves around 20 million euros.
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