The regional government and the municipalities of Zaragoza, Huesca, and Teruel have submitted objections to the information study conducted by the Ministry of Transport. The Aragonese institutions are calling for a high-performance infrastructure for passengers and freight to avoid a bottleneck in the railway connection to the Mediterranean.
Aragon has put forth objections to the information study regarding the Teruel-Sagunto section of the Cantabrian-Mediterranean Corridor, with a central request: that this connection be designed as a high-performance line, featuring a double electrified track with the capacity for mixed traffic of passengers and freight. The regional government and the mayors of the three Aragonese capitals believe that the currently proposed solution could limit the future capacity of a strategic rail axis connecting the Ebro Valley with the Mediterranean and the Cantabrian coast.
The objections were submitted on Tuesday to the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility by the president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, accompanied by the minister of Housing, Development, Logistics, and Territorial Cohesion, Octavio López, as well as the mayors of Zaragoza, Natalia Chueca; Teruel, Emma Buj; and Huesca, Lorena Orduna. The institutions are requesting the withdrawal of the current study and the development of a new proposal that includes higher performance standards for the section between Teruel and Sagunto.
The main argument is the difference between the proposed solution for those 137 kilometers and the planned actions in other parts of the corridor. According to the objections, maintaining a single-track infrastructure with more limited capabilities for the connection between Teruel and the Mediterranean could reduce the capacity and reliability of the entire axis, especially as freight rail traffic increases.
A strategic connection between PLAZA and the port of Valencia
The importance of the section goes beyond passenger mobility. The Cantabrian-Mediterranean Corridor must connect some of the main industrial and logistics centers in northern and eastern Spain, and for Aragon, it represents a direct rail outlet to the port of Valencia. At the other end lies Zaragoza, where PLAZA serves as one of the country’s largest logistics hubs and concentrates significant activity related to transport and distribution.
A railway connection with greater capacity would strengthen freight transport between both poles and improve conditions for companies to use rail as an alternative to road transport. The Aragonese request thus proposes an infrastructure designed to handle both passenger services and freight traffic while ensuring interoperability with the rest of the network.
The Aragonese institutions believe that the actions taken and currently underway on the Zaragoza-Teruel-Sagunto line have advanced its modernization, but they argue that these investments should be viewed as a first stage. Their proposal aims to plan the corridor with a long-term perspective, considering the growth of logistics and industrial activity, thus avoiding specific sections from later limiting the overall capacity.
The objections also request that Aragon participate from the earliest phases in defining the new alternatives and that efforts be made with European institutions to restore the high-performance designation of the section. Integration into the Trans-European Transport Network is another of the arguments used to advocate for an infrastructure with higher levels of capacity, reliability, and interoperability.
The decision regarding Teruel-Sagunto is particularly significant because the corridor is not solely an Aragonese infrastructure. Its purpose is to articulate a railway connection between the Mediterranean, the Ebro Valley, and the northern peninsula, linking territories with a high concentration of industrial, logistics, and port activity. Therefore, the characteristics with which this section is ultimately designed will determine part of the future capacity of the entire axis.
With the objections now submitted, the debate enters the analysis phase of the information study. Aragon emphasizes that planning should not only address the current needs of the line but also consider the evolution of rail traffic over the coming decades. For a community that has made logistics one of its strategic sectors, having a competitive railway connection between Zaragoza, Teruel, and the Mediterranean is also a matter of capacity for moving goods and connecting its companies with the main national and European corridors.
