Ideal newspaper is reporting that the General Budget for 2013 has put back work on the AVE high speed trainline, with the completion date now slipping to “late” 2017.
The budget, which is allocated about 40% less money for investment than last year, has reduced the importance of the Almería works, whilst keeping the line to Murcia as “urgent”.
Meaning, basically, that they’re concentrating the money they have on the line to Murcia, and will worry about the Almería connection once that bit is done.
Given that Murcia already has conventional rail links to Albacete, which tie into LAV Madrid-Valencia, the priority really should be on getting the Almeria-Lorca stretch built ASAP. That way at least through running services are possible, even if only with slower Alvia services. It gets service started – and revenue coming in. Then the remainder of the line can come later to improve services to full AVE standard.
Given that Lorca-Almeria is the missing link in the “Mediterranean Corridor”, I genuinely am suprised that this approach wasn’t adopted.