Starting last week, passengers on the Madrid-Galicia line have begun to benefit from a safer and faster route, with the inauguration of the Zamora-Pedralba high-speed section, corresponding to the Madrid-Galicia High-Speed Corridor. This section goes into commercial service with the Thales ERTMS Level 2 system from Madrid Chamartín, which will make it possible to reduce total travel time to all of the Galician provincial capitals by between 30 and 90 minutes depending on the city.
INSE RAIL contributed to this milestone by developing the construction project for the safety and communications installations of the Zamora-Pedralba section of the Madrid-Galicia High Speed Line for THALSI (Thales-Siemens) joint venture.
The commissioning of this section reduces the resulting times from Madrid by 1h 26′ to Pontevedra, 1h 02′ to Lugo, 41′ to Santiago de Compostela, 39′ to Orense, 31′ to Vigo and 24′ to La Coruña, benefiting the more than 5 million passengers who travel between Madrid and Galicia each year, as well as the 500,000 who travel between the capitals of Castilla-León and Madrid.
With these 110 km of new line, the Madrid-Orense high-speed line becomes one of the lines with the most kilometers of ERTMS level 2 in commercial service in Spain, exceeding 340 km, improving passenger safety and allowing speeds of up to 300 km/h.
The Pedralba-Taboadela-Orense section, on which INSE RAIL is also working together with the THALSI joint venture, still remains to be completed to make the entire Madrid-Galicia line high speed.
