Carlos Castañón is a pioneer who wants to explore wines in other latitudes. The 64-year-old man bought a round-trip ticket between Pola de Lena (Asturias) and León on Thursday, November 30, the first day of High Speed in Asturias. “We are delighted after 20 years of work. “Let's eat, drink some wine, spend the afternoon and come back,” he says, although he confesses that he will long for the mountainous landscape now reduced to fleeting postcards between concrete walls. It has taken 19 years, 4,000 million euros and a lot of patience to complete the work. Asturias travels to the present on rails and aspires to an industrial and tourist future to revive the economy and the indices of a territory in decline. All thanks to a devilish 50 kilometer stretch.
The duration of the journeys accredits the evolution: the trip from Madrid to Oviedo is now made in four hours, compared to the almost five and a half hours that it took before, and it will be made in three hours when the new trains arrive in 2024. . The Alvia crosses the 25 kilometers of the new Pajares tunnel in 15 minutes, a torment for engineers and workers until it manages to overcome the orographic whims underground, at 201 kilometers per hour. Not so long ago, an intense storm meant stopping the convoy and covering the rest of the journey by bus. The work connects La Robla (León) with Pola de Lena (Asturias), where the High Speed Line concludes; The connection with Gijón or Oviedo must continue to be made by Cercanías.
A visit to the Oviedo platform reveals disparate images: men in raincoats, a man with a Santa Claus hat, a grandmother, her daughter and her granddaughter with Christmas gifts, and two young people who previously went to Madrid by plane. In León, an elegant lawyer comes up to scrutinize a labor claim; In Valladolid a girl descends with two cats. Users appreciate the speed and plan getaways. Flor and Silvino participated in many demonstrations during these two decades: “We thought we would never see it!”, they sigh, and call on Spain to discover the north.
Infrastructure, according to the Asturian Minister of Development, Alejandro Calvo (PSOE), will revolutionize Asturias as a “tool of transformation and revitalization.” The work represents an “opportunity for development and structuring for passengers and goods” to become a “logistics hub” and tourist magnet, he maintains. The Principality, with demographic and economic problems after mining fell, is close to one million inhabitants, as in 1960, and has gone from an industrial GDP of 16.2% to 11% between the years 2000 and 2020 (below 20% that the EU recommends to guarantee development, although somewhat higher than the national average). Calvo predicts that the marketing of Asturian railway freight will become cheaper and will give competitiveness to both current companies and potential investors. The Alvia, the counselor trusts, will encourage tourism outside of the high seasons. He rejects that High Speed is going to overwhelm Asturias: “Our challenge is to involve all corners,” he says.
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A report from the Asturian Federation of Entrepreneurs, delighted with the new variant, maintains that Asturias lagged behind other regions of the northwest by not recovering the GDP prior to the 2008 financial crisis. The study affects the loss of employment in that period, with 66,000 fewer workers, and the decline in competitiveness in Castilla y León, Galicia and the Principality. The employers regret the loss of qualified population due to the lack of opportunities and present the work as a milestone. This is what engineer Pablo Augusto, 27, riding a Cercanías between Oviedo and Pola hopes: “It won't be bad, the problem is management.” The young man demands reasonable prices after the first promotions to replace the bus or car to get around. He does fear that Asturias, now accessible as a “climate refuge,” will become saturated: “Rent in Gijón is very expensive and in the mining basins many apartments are being sold to Madrid residents,” he protests. Furthermore, like many other respondents, he remembers that, apart from this infrastructure, we must take care of the links between the territory, which are outdated and frequently delayed. Like Augusto, other voices speak of “mixed feelings”: they value progress but fear “gentrification” in their natural paradise. On December 9, geologist María Consolación Rodríguez stated in a letter to the director of EL PAÍS that the AVE work “has depleted more than 20 aquifers in the central mountains of León.” “It represents an ecological crime of immense proportions and for which to date no one has had the guts to solve or take responsibility. “Is this really an advance in our history?” she asked.
A real estate agency in Pola (10,500 inhabitants) corroborates the trend: many ask for cheap properties half an hour from the sea. The mayor, Gemma Álvarez (Izquierda Unida), aspires to “new opportunities” as an “ideal place to raise a family or start a business”, between the beach and the mountains. Álvarez boasts of leisure and gastronomy and has perceived “expectation, an increase in vacation rentals and interest in vehicle rentals and parking areas.” “People need reactivation, we have to take advantage,” she says. A hotelier from Pola de Lena is surprised by the voices that talk about “building new hotels” due to the possible multiplied demand: “So many people will come?” The Principality attracted 400,000 visitors last July, with packed coastal towns.
Only the cowbells and bleating of some sheep at the exit of the Pajares tunnel in Pontones, after 24,648 meters of darkness, interrupt the silence. Peace reigns in the village where José Manuel Estrada's mothers chatter on the concrete ramps. “It is a liberation to have finished the works, it does not affect us but it does affect Pola and the region,” explains the 68-year-old retiree. “There are not even cows“, he sighs, in green valleys, each year with fewer ranchers, where the orbayu, as they call fine drizzle in Asturias, baptizes the modern railway lightning bolt. There are already many Madrid residents spending their summers there and foreigners in mansions like the one decorated with an Asturian flag and another from Extremadura, sisters in the lack of infrastructure. Until this November 30th.
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