The Spanish rail freight terminal Madrid-Vicalvaro will be upgraded with four new rail tracks and a new electronic centre. The Spanish government has authorised the tender to select an engineering firm for the works.

The project has a total budget of 22.9 million Euros, taking 18 months to be completed. This construction is the first of four civil works to extend the station and develop an intermodal logistical hub with 18 rail tracks and capability to handle 750 metre-length cargo trains.

European funding

The upgrade may be co-funded by the ‘Connecting European Facility’ fund, which main objective is completing intermodal hubs inon vital transport links. Vicalvaro is a district of Madrid, the Spanish capital, beside the motorway A3 to Valencia. It is surrounded by the towns of San Fernando de Henares and Coslada, which have essential logistical hubs to supply Madrid.

Madrid has become an essential redistribution centre for Great Madrid (around 6 million people), Castile and Leon and Castile-La Mancha. However, Abroñigal, its main rail freight terminal, has become a bottleneck as it has been surrounded by new neighbourhoods in Madrid and therefore cannot be enlarged.

Hub

As a solution, the Spanish and the regional government designed a large project to combine Abroñigal with upgraded rail freight stations in Vicalvaro (Southeast) and Aranjuez (45 kilometres far from Madrid, beside the highway A4 to the southern region of Andalusia), improving the links between Madrid and the ports of Valencia and Algeciras.