The Spanish Basque Countries will soon be home to Spain’s first standard gauge (1435 mm) node along the TEN-T Atlantic Corridor. The upgraded hubs will all be near Vitoria-Gasteiz, with the one in Júndiz nearing completion. The first freight trains with this configuration should start running in 2025, as the Spanish Ministry of Transport Oscar Puente underlined during a site visit.
The project for the Basque Countries is being carried out in four phases, with the first one, concerning Júndiz, to be completed in the first half of 2025. Here, an additional 1435 mm track will be added in two of the reception and dispatch lanes as well as in two loading and unloading areas. Spain’s investment for this initiative revolves around 37 million euros. Once this phase is complete, four trains will run on the new infrastructure on a daily basis.
Villodas comes next
Moreover, Puente is now placing its hopes in the Basque Government to sign off on the start of the second phase, which will concern the Villodas terminal. The investment here amounts to 39 million euros and will provide capacity to run three additional trains in standard gauge. In total, once all the phases are completed, the logistics hubs in the area, including Júndiz and Villodas, will handle 10 daily trains.
Júndiz variant
To boost rail freight traffic to and from the multimodal terminal in Júndiz, Spain is also studying the possibility of building a railway variant specifically for freight traffic. The line would run west of Vitoria-Gasteiz, one of the largest Basque cities in Spain. “The result of this study will be a first step in all the technical work to be carried out if it concludes favourably on its feasibility”, the Ministry stated.