Sources close to the commission made up of experts from both departments have informed this newspaper that negotiations on the issue are far from over. At stake is the 50 kilometres of main coastal line that the Junta de Andalucía has planned since last year, capable of carrying a so-called Quality Service train - which means speeds of up to 220 kilometres per hour - between the provincial capital and Estepona. One way or another, work is expected to begin on the new line as soon as the construction project for the Malaga-Marbella-San Pedro Alcántara line has been completed.

So why is a train capable of travelling at 220 kilometres per hour on a double line built to international width standards necessary on the Costa del Sol? This is the question experts from the Junta de Andalucía asked the Public Works ministry in conversations they have been having with them over recent months, but so far, neither side has released any information about these talks.

Tunnel to the airport

At present, there is only a single line connecting Malaga with Fuengirola, built to national width standards and capable of carrying trains travelling at an average speed of less than 60 kilometres per hour on two thirds of its length. It is badly congested at peak times, transporting nine million passengers each year. In view of the huge inconvenience caused by this situation, the Delegation for Public Works in the Junta de Andalucía has been attempting to pressurise the central government into accepting the building of a completely new line between Malaga and Fuengirola.

The idea for this alternative derives from the Malaga Plan project to amplify Malaga Airport, which includes the building of a new tunnel beneath the aerodrome, independent of the present urban railway line.

The train would run in the interior of this coastal strip, and would cost a loosely estimated 1,000 million euros to build. The line width would be international, double electrified and with one possible stop between Malaga city and Fuengirola. It would link up there with the new line towards Marbella and on to Estepona. This would mean that the existing line would continue in service, and would continue to carry urban trains only. The new trains will have a maximum speed of 84 kilometres per hour for urban trains and 141 kilometres per hour for long-distance trains.

The time it takes to cover the distance between Fuengirola and San Pedro Alcántara would be 15 minutes without stops, while, if a completely new line is built between Malaga and Fuengirola, this journey would be made in less than 25 minutes, against the 45 minutes it currently takes. The journey from Marbella to Malaga would take three quarters of an hour.

For the moment, there has been no response to the Junta de Andalucía’s proposal, and sources close to the Public Works ministry have indicated that the answer is in the negative. In the last meeting between the two departments, the central government put forward their own alternative.

This proposal is to improve the present line between Malaga city and the airport, where the Public Works ministry would invest more than 150 million euros over the coming years. This would cover the cost of a double line, a tunnel under the Guadalhorce River and a second runway for the airport. The Ministry appears interested only in building a double line all the way and adapting it for international width standards to Fuengirola, thereby allowing for a continued connection to Estepona.

Proposal

No new data has been yet released on this proposal, which will include smaller link lines and tunnels to allow for two-way use. The result would be more trains operating at the same time, while urban trains, Malaga-Estepona trains and even the new AVE high-speed trains from Madrid could use the line.

The outcome of these negotiations will determine, to a certain extend, the future development of the Costa del Sol. The ideal solution would be to have a completely new line while keeping the old, improving it to cope with increased passenger numbers. The final solution, in the meantime, will be decided by the Minister for Public Works, Magdalena álvarez, and the Delegate for Public Works in the Junta de Andalucía, Concepción Gutiérrez.

Project depends on sufficient state funding

The central government has been setting aside the vastly inadequate amount of 150,000 euros for the past four years for studies to be carried out into the proposed new railway service for the Costa del Sol. The result is that no work on the project will actually be done in 2008 either, and the future of the coastal train for the Costa del Sol will depend on the government’s budget for the project next year.

Sufficient money must be forthcoming to enable construction to begin on the two sections of the new line that make up the 36.6-kilometre stretch between Fuengirola and San Pedro Alcántara. The drawing up of the original project plans was done in June 2005, and was to take 18 months. But in spite of the large number of revisions to it, the problems of deciding definitively on the Malaga-Fuengirola line and the issue of taking it under the Centre of Leisure Industries building in Mijas, there is no good reason why work on the project, valued at 1,100 million euros, should not start in 2008.

Time-lines

Although the time-line for the completion of the project plans ran out last December, the Junta de Andalucía claims that this work will begin next year. Many of the details have been sorted out, we are assured, such as the design of the stations on the Fuengirola-Marbella section of line, and work on the plans for the extension to Estepona has been tendered out. All that needs to be done now is for the heavy machinery to move in.

For the moment, all that is known is the amount set aside in the Junta de Andalucía budget for the province, which is 750 million euros. The sharing out of this amount will be made known at the end of the month, and we will then see how important this railway project really is for the Junta de Andalucía.

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