Page 329 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Perspectives of territorial development linked to the future high-performance rail lines in Eastern
Andalusia.

Figure 2. Urban System of Andalusia in the Territorial Regional Spatial Plan. Source: COPT (2006).

2. Former and present rail line situations In Eastern Andalusia.

The situation of the rail lines in Eastern Andalusia during the last decades of the past
century was marked by its underdevelopment and an obsolescence process that had its
most severe example with the closing and dismantling of the line between Guadix (18,800
Hab.) and Almendricos -towards Lorca and Murcia- in the nineties, which lost the unique
direct eastern rail connection of the region. Since then it was necessary to take a big
detour from Guadix to the station of Alcazar de San Juan at the same latitude as Valencia
and continue to Albacete, Valencia or Barcelona. Then Almeria (193,000 Hab.) had a unique
inland connection to the national capital or the east by a conventional single track and non-
electrified line through Guadix – Moreda – Linares-Baeza and Alcazar de San Juan.

In contrast to this loss, in parallel the first High Speed Rail (HSR) line in Spain in western
Andalusia connecting Madrid and Seville was being developed and opened in 1992. It started
the process of development of new HSR lines following other international experiences,
which have been developing with the standard international gauge (1435 mm) different
from the conventional or Iberian gauge (1668 mm), and with these two different gauges co-
existing in the rail network, the HSR for passenger traffic and the conventional for mixed
passenger and freight traffic (Ureña, 2012).

During the first years of the last decade, the main actions in this area were the
development and later opening of the HSR between Cordoba and Antequera (41,100

International Congress on High-speed Rail: Technologies and Long Term Impacts - Ciudad Real (Spain) - 25th anniversary Madrid-Sevilla corridor 327