Compromís, in coordination with Chunta Aragonesista, has submitted objections to the Informative Study of the Cantabrian-Mediterranean railway corridor in the Sagunto-Teruel section. Both formations demand that the Government of Spain discard the current proposal and recover a high-performance project with double electrified track and mixed use for passengers and freight, focusing on the needs of the municipalities of Alto Palancia.
The Compromís deputy in Congress, Àgueda Micó, has warned in a statement that the option of a single track shared by freight and passenger trains "means mortgaging the railway future of the inland regions." In her opinion, "We cannot allow the towns of Alto Palancia to bear the passage of a strategic freight corridor while continuing with insufficient railway services. If we want to fight against depopulation, large infrastructures must also improve the lives of the people living in the territories they cross."
The objections emphasize that a single-track infrastructure would have limited capacity and that the anticipated increase in freight traffic could end up reducing the frequencies and quality of passenger services. This situation, according to Micó, "would particularly affect" the municipalities in the interior of Castelló and Teruel.
The spokesperson for Caudiel Más Vivo-Compromís, Mari Carmen Muñoz, has stressed that "the train must serve to provide opportunities to the inland towns, retain population, and improve our connections, not just to see trains pass by." In this line, she has recalled that "Caudiel needs a 21st-century railway that connects us better and that is compatible with the economic development that this corridor can generate."
Compromís and Chunta also propose a deep modernization of the route as it passes through Alto Palancia, since the current line maintains a geometry inherited from the early 20th century. The formations consider it essential to update the design to adapt it to current railway needs.
The objections propose to soften the steep slopes existing, which reach 24 thousandths at several points, by rectifying the route to set maximum ramps of 18 thousandths and curves with wider radii. In this way, they argue, both safety and the capacity and efficiency of the corridor would be improved.
Among the priority actions is included a new railway variant of 19 kilometers between Jérica and Barracas, which directly affects Caudiel, with the aim of eliminating the gradients of up to 24 thousandths that are concentrated in that section. The proposal maintains that these variants must allow for the channeling of heavy traffic without implying the suppression of passenger train service at the stations that currently serve the municipalities.
Muñoz has insisted that "Modernizing the corridor cannot mean distancing the railway from our towns," and has emphasized that "any action must guarantee that Caudiel continues to have passenger service and that we can aspire to more frequencies, better connections, and more competitive travel times."
The allegations also incorporate specific demands for the Alto Palancia region, such as the reopening of the Masadas Blancas station in Viver, and the old stop of Torás-Bejís, as well as the protection and conservation of the existing century-old railway bridges and viaducts in the area.
Micó has emphasized that the Sagunto-Teruel section cannot be analyzed "in isolation," but as part of a railway axis that must link the Valencian ports with Teruel, Zaragoza, the Cantabrian Sea, and Europe. In his opinion, "If we leave a single track precisely in this section, we are creating a bottleneck that will end up conditioning the entire corridor. It makes no sense to talk about a strategic infrastructure to connect the Mediterranean with the Cantabrian Sea and Europe while simultaneously maintaining the limitations of a line designed more than a century ago."
For this reason, Compromís and Chunta urge the Ministry of Transport to withdraw the current Informative Study and draft a new one that includes the double electrified track for mixed use for passengers and goods, along with a true modernization of the layout throughout the section.
Micó has concluded by warning that "The towns of Alto Palancia cannot simply become a transit territory." In his opinion, the Cantabrian-Mediterranean corridor must also represent an opportunity for the interior of Castelló, "improving the mobility of people while boosting the railway transport of goods."