The contract, with a completion period of 12 months, includes the demand study, study and cataloging of the existing buildings in the scope of action, functional study, basic project and final project design, as well as the environmental studies required by ADIF to authorize the connection of the railway siding to the General Interest Railway Network (RFIG), in addition to the subsequent execution.

The project will develop a railway siding in a strategic location, improving an existing unused railway facility, which will serve the future Ponferrada Intermodal Logistics Platform, linked to the CyLoG installation, as a tool for the economic recovery and reindustrialization of the El Bierzo District. It will also facilitate the ecological transition by promoting more sustainable transport of goods, shifting cargo from the road to rail and contribute to the decarbonization of transport, in line with the strategies and objectives of the European Union.

The works to be developed in the project will be located in the La Placa area, in the municipality of Ponferrada (León), next to the ADIF Logistics Facility in Ponferrada and ADIF’s railway line 800, León – A Coruña.  

Source: Inse Rail

Adif, the railway infrastructure administrator, has awarded the contract to draft the construction projects to extend the sidings in different stations of the General Interest Railway Network to 750 meters.. According to the agency, this “will increase the operability of the railway infrastructure for freight traffic”. The total amount of the contract, which has been divided into three lots, is more than 8.8 million euros, with a completion time of 24 months. The public company highlighted that the contract “was defined based on Adif’s inventory work, different studies and functional analysis of the different needs of the lines in terms of the installation of this type of sidings”.

The infrastructure manager has awarded the contract to draft the construction projects in three lots, which correspond to the north, south and center-northwest zones. The lot for the south zone was awarded to the joint venture formed by Peyco Proyectos, Estudios y Construcciones and Inse Rail, for more than 2.7 million euros.

Adif has indicated that these actions are aimed at “providing the General Interest Railway Network with the optimal conditions to meet the needs of rail freight transport at the national and international levels and to take another step towards the interoperability of the railway network”. It also pointed out that the extension of the sidings “will allow the parking and siding of trains with the standard interoperable length, with the same quality and reliability of the existing service”. Since this is an open order, the agency has indicated that “the final number and types of projects will be determined by Adif over the course of the contract term”.

Renfe is expanding its Madrid high-speed train workshop to serve the incoming fleet. The works will start in June and account for 12.5 million euros out of a tendering budget of 16.5 million euros. The contract was awarded to the Seranco-Pasaval joint venture, with a completion time of nine months.

The Santa Catalina workshop, in the area of Entrevías and Puente de Vallecas, with a total of four tracks, began operating in 2010 with the opening of the Madrid-Valencia high-speed line. This number will now be doubled to serve a fleet with an additional 24 high-speed trains.

The project, which was drafted by Inse Rail, in consortium with Ofitep, provides the complete technical definition of all the works necessary for the commissioning of the new level-one workshop, and includes the railway infrastructure elements (track, electrification and safety and signaling installations), building elements and urban development elements (drainage, roads, connections, etc.), and all of the installations necessary for the complete operation of a maintenance complex of this type.

The expansion of the existing building, with four additional 200-meter tracks, will make it possible to service 48 vehicles at its eight maintenance stations. Renfe’s workshops are currently at 100% capacity, so the goal of the project is to increase the capacity of this facility, where the maintenance companies Actren and Nertus also work.

The business consortium made up of Inse Rail and Ines Ingenieros Consultores, will draft the projects for the adaptation of overpasses and tunnel entrances throughout the north railway network managed by ADIF, including conventional, standard and metric gauge lines, where the installation of protective enclosures is considered necessary for the later installation of the Falling Object Detection (DCO) system, as well as the inspection and inventory of these elements of the infrastructure.

The Falling Object Detection system, whose purpose is to prevent traffic incidents due to the possible invasion of the track gauge by foreign objects, is considered necessary to improve the operation of the lines, since it makes it possible to reliably confirm at all times that the track is free of obstacles at the points where the system is installed.

The most critical points in terms of the possibility of objects falling onto the track are tunnel openings, due to the need to control possible falling loose material, and overpasses, due to the possibility of objects falling from vehicle traffic travelling over them.

 

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.