The objective is that the locomotives carry out the maneuvers of their alternative route with the maximum reliability
Adif High Speed (Adif AV) will enable a locomotive service to facilitate maneuvering and circulation for rail freight companies while the underground works are being carried out in Murcia.
The traction and driving contract has been tendered for an amount of 3,002,010.00 euros (VAT included) and with the aim that freight trains carry out their journeys with maximum safety and reliability, and in the shortest possible time, as reported by Adif sources in a statement.
Adif will make the tractor-trailer service available to all rail freight transport companies in the area due to the planned suspension of circulation on the line between Murcia and Murcia Cargas from February 2022 to undertake the underground works in this city.
The locomotive will help freight trains to carry out various maneuvers in the section of about 100 kilometers in length between El Reguerón (Murcia) and San Gabriel (Alicante).
Alternative route and ongoing investments
Specifically, given the announced suspension of circulation foreseen from February 2022 on the Murcia-Murcia Cargas line, freight trains with origin or destination in Cartagena must vary their route, so that they will have to circulate in the direction of Alicante until San Gabriel to continue later towards the center of the country.
To do this, trains must make two reversals of gear. In addition, these investment operations must be carried out in the El Reguerón area, given the lack of space for this in Murcia El Carmen due to the underground works currently being carried out at this station.
However, El Reguerón constitutes a railway junction with a high number of circulations. For this reason, in order to carry out the maneuvers with maximum safety and to minimize the time required to do so, Adif will provide railway companies with a locomotive service to hook up their trains at the tail end.
In this way, freight trains will circulate with a pilot locomotive in the queue to San Gabriel, where it will be disengaged and the train will reverse gear again to continue with the main locomotive of the train in the lead.
With this provisional service, Adif will facilitate and reduce circulation times along the alternative route, since the maneuver of moving the main locomotive from one end of the train to the other was not possible in San Gabriel, and carrying it out in El Reguerón would affect the rest of circulations.
The initiative is part of the set of measures taken by Adif and Adif Alta Velocidad to minimize the impact that the suspension of traffic to undertake the works of the Murcia-Almería section of the Mediterranean Corridor may cause for the mobility of passengers and goods.
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