The Spanish infrastructure manager Adif has put out a tender to construct the southern railway access to the port of Castellon. The line’s construction will link the port to the Mediterranean TEN-T corridor and facilitate rail connections between the ports of Barcelona and Valencia.

The port of Castellon is a medium-sized port between Barcelona and Valencia. With the ports of Barcelona and Valencia being the leaders in the region, Castellon finds itself in ninth place in the list of 46 Spanish ports and second in solid bulk traffic. With a new railway connection to the Mediterranean Corridor, though, its significance is about to change.

Southern railway access

“We continue making progress in improving rail-port connections to promote cooperation between modes and favour rail freight transport,” underlined Adif before sharing the project’s details. In Castellon, Adif aims to “construct a new southern rail access which will facilitate a greater number of circulations and allow rail freight transport to gain in competitiveness and efficiency by reducing access times and passing trains.”

The IM has published a tender for the project that will cost approximately 123 million euros, and its execution period is estimated to be 30 months. The project is all about finishing a freight-dedicated line which in total is 8,3 kilometres long. The tender concerns the construction of a 4,69 kilometres long section belonging to the port facilities. The rest of the line belongs to the already existing Mediterranean corridor. The line will have a single track, but since it’s freight dedicated, this shouldn’t cause any capacity issues.

Apart from bringing the port of Castellon closer to the European railway network, the new line will also facilitate rail freight transport between the major ports of Barcelona and Valencia. “With the execution of the works in this section, we will materialise the railway connection of the Valencia-Barcelona line, between the stations of Almassora and Castellón, allowing traffic to increase and offer a more competitive and sustainable transport alternative than the current one,” concluded Adif.

Also read:

• Mediterranean corridor in Valencia to be completed
• ‘Train Port Barcelona’ signals the emergence of a new rail hub
• Spain: industrial association pushes for rail freight lines reopening

• Spain’s Port of Castellon invests in rail freight connectivity

• Adif extends rail sidings all over Spain to the benefit of rail freight