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Date Published: 15/11/2022
ARCHIVED - New high-speed train will reduce Murcia-Alicante journey to 50 minutes
The Mediterranean Corridor connecting the Murcia Region with Valencia is still a couple of years from completion
The development of the high-speed ‘Mediterranean Corridor’ rail line is progressing at full steam, the central government commissioner for the project, Josep Vicent Boira, confirmed on Monday November 14, adding that the Region of Murcia will be one of the communities to benefit the most “due to the total change in its railway map”.
In a press conference held at the new railway facilities at the Murcia-El Carmen station, Boira explained that Murcianos will eventually be able to make the train journey to Alicante city in just 40 to 50 minutes, while a trip to Valencia will take a mere hour and a half.
Unfortunately though, while the works on the railway lines in Murcia are due to be finished next December, it will be another “two or three years” before the high-speed connection with Valencia and Alicante is up and running.
Once completed, the trains will serve more than 4 million people in addition to tourists.
The benefits for the Region of Murcia extend beyond day-to-day travel, Boira stressed, since the extended Mediterranean Corridor has been designed as a “gateway to the centre of Europe,” connecting the Region with cities like Lyon in France, Rotterdam in Holland and Berlin in Germany.
However, although the matter has been repeatedly raised by the Association of Economists of the Region, there are currently no plans to develop a double platform to accommodate goods and passengers separately.
“Hopefully in 10 or 15 years the route will be saturated and it will be necessary to split it, but now it doesn’t make sense,” he said.
While the long-term project is still pretty far from completion, since it began in June 2018 Adif has tendered an impressive 1.4 billion euros for works in the Region of Murcia, from the national budget of 4.4 billion.
Image: Renfe
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