• The companies have expressed their interest in extending the Valencia-Madrid railway motorway to Valladolid and creating a new Valladolid-Madrid, with dual destinations, Zaragoza and Algeciras.
• The minister has reported that the Eastern Variant, which will be put into service in 2025 in a first phase, will allow all freight trains to be removed from the city and reduce rail traffic in the urban centre by 25%.
• The minister has confirmed the commitment to the province, where more than 100 million euros have been invested so far this year, compared to the 13 million euros tendered in 2017.
• The Ministry is developing phase 2 of the Railway Complex; the duplication of the track between Valladolid, Palencia and León; the A-11; the humanisation of the VA-20; and the U de Olmedo, whose works will begin soon.

The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, has today visited the works of the future Valladolid Railway Complex, which will turn the province into a strategic logistics hub of the Atlantic Corridor and will form part of the railway motorway services. And, as the minister has announced, companies have already presented service proposals for the new freight terminal that is being built at the Railway Complex.

“I can tell you that it will be in high demand,” said Óscar Puente before explaining that companies are interested in extending the Valencia-Madrid railway motorway to Valladolid and creating a new Valladolid-Madrid with a dual destination, Zaragoza on one side and Algeciras on the other, linked to the automobile and agri-food industry sectors, and also serving as an initial link to connections such as Cantabria, Asturias or Galicia.

The Valladolid freight terminal will have 230,000 m2 that will house 7 tracks of more than 750 m for receiving and dispatching trains; a loading-unloading and storage area for containers and semi-trailers for the railway motorways with another 2 tracks of 750 meters; the parking lot and a logistics expansion area.

The Eastern Variant, ready

Within the framework of these works, aimed at promoting rail freight transport, the minister has announced that the Eastern Variant, which will connect with the new Railway Complex, will be 100% operational in 2026, allowing all freight trains to be removed from the city of Valladolid, which will reduce rail traffic passing through the city by 25%. “We are talking about more than 30 trains a day, some of them at night, which will benefit traffic and the citizens of the city,” said Puente.

Specifically, the Variant will be activated in two phases:

• In 2025, with the opening of the section between the connection with FASA Renault and the northern link - the longest one - all this traffic will no longer pass through the city centre. They represent a quarter of the goods that currently circulate through the centre.
• By 2026, with full commissioning, all rail freight will no longer pass through the centre.

Not in vain, the works on the Variante platform are 92% completed and both the substations and the communications and signalling are already under construction.

The Eastern Variant is an 18 km line that will provide double-track continuity to the Madrid-Hendaye line, designed for 160 km/h and which includes important structures such as the Tramposos viaduct, 1,130 metres long, and the San Cristóbal tunnel, 2.2 kilometres long. The budget is 116.2 million euros (VAT not included) or 139.8 million euros, including VAT.

Valladolid Railway Complex

During his visit, Minister Óscar Puente announced that the Valladolid Railway Complex will allow all logistics-industrial, track maintenance and rolling stock activities to be brought together in a single complex. “It will undoubtedly be the largest of its kind in Spain in terms of surface area, and one of the largest in Europe, along with some in the United States (Rotterdam) or Germany (Ludwigshafen),” said the head of the Department.

Through Adif, 300 million euros are being invested in building the Complex, with all works underway, which will remodel the city's railway network to turn it into a hub for freight transport, railway technology and innovation, and which includes the new freight terminal. An action that also recovers urban spaces, such as with the transfer of the Renfe workshops, which are already fully operational.

The complex will have an Adif maintenance base, with a surface area of ​​2,700 m2, with workshops, warehouses and offices. It will also house the Track Technology Centre and the Redalsa centre.

The development of these infrastructures is part of the Ministry's commitment to double the modal share of freight traffic by rail and to strengthen Valladolid as one of the fundamental pillars of the Atlantic Corridor. For this reason, the province is included among the seven strategic nodes of the 'Commodity 30' project, together with Madrid, Barcelona , ​​Jundiz (Vitoria) , Seville, Zaragoza and Valencia.

Travelers

Beyond freight, Valladolid is also a key node of the Atlantic Corridor for passenger train traffic, which is also being promoted. In this regard, the minister has highlighted the extension of the northern access to the Valladolid Campo Grande station, for more than 30 million euros, which will serve to deploy a double track of standard width and high speed, further facilitating traffic.

Óscar Puente recalled that the Ministry has made a very important commitment to public transport, “with historic measures that have made people get on the train. In the province of Valladolid alone, Renfe has issued 400,884 passes for recurring users, which have meant an estimated saving of 21.3 million euros.”

Investments in Valladolid

According to the head of the Department, all these advances in infrastructure have been possible thanks to the increase in investments made by the Ministry since 2018.

The Minister has presented data showing that 2023 saw three times as much investment executed in the province of Valladolid as in 2017. In addition, until July 2024 the Ministry has multiplied the investment tenders in the province: “more than 100 million euros in less than a year compared to the 13 million euros tendered in 2017”.

To be more specific, the minister pointed out that, thanks to these investments, phase 2 of the Railway Complex is underway; the doubling of the track between Valladolid, Palencia and León; the works on the A-11; and the humanisation of the VA-20.

And also the one known as the U of Olmedo , whose works will begin soon after the formalization of the contract for 40 million euros, which will allow the generation of high-speed transversal traffic from the West of the peninsula, Galicia and Asturias to the North of Spain, Euskadi and Navarra, or the East of Spain, Aragon and Catalonia without going through Madrid, generating new relations in competitive times.