The Atlantic Axis high-speed rail line, also called Atlantic Corridor high-speed rail line, is a high-speed railway line that links

A Coruña A Coruña (; ; also informally called just Coruña; historical English: Corunna or The Groyne) is a city and municipality in Galicia, Spain. It is Galicia's second largest city, behind Vigo. The city is the provincial capital of the province ...

Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela, simply Santiago, or Compostela, in the province of Province of A Coruña, A Coruña, is the capital of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city ...

Pontevedra Pontevedra (, ) is a city in the autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in northwestern Spain. It is the capital of both the ''Pontevedra (comarca), Comarca'' and Province of Pontevedra, and the capital of the Rías Baixas. It is als ...

and

Vigo Vigo (, ; ) is a city and Municipalities in Spain, municipality in the province of province of Pontevedra, Pontevedra, within the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, Spain. Located in the northwest ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. The Atlantic Axis was inaugurated in April 2015.

History

Construction started in 2001 and the first section between A Coruña and

opened in 2009 and was electrified in 2011. The extension from Santiago de Compostela to

and Vigo completed in March 2015 and the entire line was inaugurated on 18 April 2015. The total investment of the project exceeded €3 bn. The line was planned to be extended to the south towards the border between Spain and Portugal and with a further connection to the city of

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

as the Porto–Vigo high-speed rail line, including the longest railway bridge on the Iberian Peninsula for the 4.5 km crossing of the

Minho River The Minho ( ; ) or Miño ( ; ; ; ) is the longest river in the autonomous community of Galicia in Spain, with a length of . It forms a part of the international border between Spain and Portugal. By discharge volume, it is the fourth largest r ...

. It was also planned to be extended to the north from A Coruña to Ferrol. However, these plans were shelved in 2011. The plans were reactivated by the Portuguese government in 2020.

Features

The line has a length of 155.6 km of

Iberian gauge Iberian gauge (, ) is a track gauge of , most extensively used by the railways of Spain and Portugal. A broad gauge, it is the second-widest gauge in regular use anywhere in the world, with only Indian gauge railways, , being wider (by ). As ...

track of , which is due to be converted to

Standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

. It is an upgrade of the former 241 km non electrified single railway line between the town of Ferrol and the Portuguese border into a double electrified high-speed line for the part between

and

. The new rebuilt railway permits mixed use traffic with a maximum design speed of 250 km/h for passenger trains. The new line has 37 tunnels totalling 59.2 km, 38% of the total length and the longest is the 8.25 km tunnel beneath Vigo which connects the line with the new Vigo-Urzaiz station. It also has 32 major bridges, including a 2.4 km viaduct across the valley of the River Sar. The new line shortens the distance between A Coruña and Vigo by 22 km, from 178 km to 156 km, and cut the travel time from around 3 hours on the old railway down to 1 hour and 20 minutes on the new one. The line is linked to the Madrid–Galicia high-speed rail line at

. Since 2015, the maximum speed between A Coruña and Vigo was 200 km/h, with the fastest journey between the two cities taking 80 minutes (with three stops).El Eje Atlántico cumple 7 años al alza en viajeros pero sin mejorar tiempos
Faro de Vigo, 21 Abril 2022. ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) railway signaling was installed in the line in August 2023 replacing the ASFA signaling. With ERMTS in operation it is now possible to raise the maximum speed up to 250 km/h and the travel time can be reduced to only 70 minutes (or 64 minutes for an express service with an only stop in Santiago).

Ridership

Within two months of opening in June 2015, the line had carried 400,000 passengers. By January 2017 total cumulative ridership was 5.1 million.

References

{{High-speed railway lines High-speed railway lines in Spain Railway lines opened in 2009