The Change from AVE to Chamartín Adds 90 Minutes to the Alicante-Andalusia Trip

The penultimate negative derivative of the change in the header and terminus of the AVE line between Alicante and Madrid from Puerta de Atocha to Chamartín. The already complicated rail connection between Alicante and Andalusia has become a little more difficult and, above all, uncomfortable since this week, since the lack of a direct link -Valencia came to have it at high speed with Seville until the reduction of services due to the pandemic- is added the fact that the possibility of transshipment at Puerta de Atocha has disappeared. Until last week a simple change of platform for which the passengers needed, at most, about 15 minutes to catch the train in Atocha itself and complete the Seville trip in 5 hours and a half, thirty more minutes to Málagawhether you started from Alicante-Termino or from the María Zambrano station in Malaga.

All services include stops in Villena. Albacete, Cuenca and Cordoba. Regarding the connection with Zaragoza, Renfe offers a daily service: departure from Alicante at 2:45 p.m. and arrival in the capital tomorrow at 8:30 p.m. after passing through Chamartín, where it arrives at 5:20 p.m. The departure from Puerta de Atocha is at 7:05 p.m., almost two hours later.

Today, the shortest train journey with transfer between Alicante and Sevilledepending on the time chosen, is between 6 hours and 29 minutes and 6 hours and 43 minutes if the destination is the capital of the Costa del Sol. Renfe has programmed four daily services but having moved the stop from Atocha to Chamartín, the travel time is 90 minutes more from when you arrive at the north station in Madrid and move to the south station by metro or commuter train. Ten minutes of travel according to the company, but susceptible, on the other hand, to stretch due to possible incidents or the very mobility of the passengers. It is not the same to change the platform than having to go to take the metro from the AVE downstairs.

On the other hand, the trip can only be made during the morning due to the travel times themselves. Leaving Alicante at 3:50 p.m. (last possibility) you will arrive in Seville at 11:40 p.m., after almost eight of travel and, for example, leaving Malaga at 4:58 p.m., the AVE, after changing from Atocha to Chamartín, will enter Alicante at 11:41 p.m., since the high-speed corridor does not have night services.

Pilar Bernabe, delegate of the Government in the Valencian Community, assures, for her part, that the “Government continues working so that the AVE that connects Alicante with Madrid can stop both in Atocha and in Chamartín”. Something that Adif itself also supports, thanks to works that have to be carried out in the recently inaugurated Atocha-Chamartín tunnel to connect with Atocha. The execution period, according to sources close to the project, is, however, three or four years.

The truth is that the Ministry of Transport has been studying since the end of 2021 the possibility that the province of Alicante is once again linked by train with Andalusia through Murcia, a communication that was cut almost 37 years ago. The Ministry has commissioned an informative study on a railway connection between Lorca (Murcia) and Guadix (Granada), to determine which path the line should follow, which would have both passenger and freight trafficand what stations might be on the route.

The duration of the study is two years. A new railway line between Lorca and Guadix, beyond joining Murcia with Granada, would make it possible to reconnect eastern Andalusia with the entire Valencian Community and Cataloniamore than three and a half decades after cutting that communication.

December 31, 1984 was the last day that the province was directly linked by train with Granada. There were two different services to eastern Andalusia that stopped at stations such as Villena, Elda, Alicante, Elche and Orihuela: an express from Barcelona and a daytime service from Valencia. It should be said that it is not that they were fast, nor did they stand out for their comfort. The Valencia-Granada daytime service was made with the same type of railcars that currently cover the routes from Alicante to Murcia and from Valencia to Alcoy.

The opening of the tunnel that connects the stations Puerta de Atocha and Chamartín in Madrid, where the Alvia already circulate non-stop in the first, ssí has ​​cut the train trip from Alicante by half an hour not only to Santander and Gijón, but has also left Castilla y León, specifically Segovia and Valladolid, to 4 hours and 30 minutes and 5 hours respectively by train journey. Renfe also offers the possibility of traveling by AVE, with a change in Chamartín between Alicante and Ourense, in 6 hours and 15 minutes thanks to the opening of new high-speed sections. The Alvia buses that connect directly with Segovia and Valladolid run twice a day between Alicante and the Castilian-Leonese capitals.

The circulation of these transversal services through the new tunnel with a stop in Chamartín allows the connection between the Valencian Community (Alicante, Valencia, Castellón) with Asturias (Oviedo, Gijón) and Cantabria (Santander, Torrelavega), with intermediate stops at stations in Castilla Lion (Valladolid, Palencia, León) and Castilla La Mancha (Cuenca, Albacete).

New relationships especially benefit the tourism and business tripssince there will be high-speed connections linking Alicante with Valladolid in five hours minutes and with León in 5 hours and 30 minutes.

The tunnel that takes the AVE directly to Chamartín has represented an investment of 1,072 million euros with the aim, according to Adif, of decongest traffic entering and leaving Madrid and connecting the high-speed lines in the north of Spain with those in the east and south, facilitating the establishment of through services, thus avoiding transfers in the capital and promoting territorial structuring.

The Spanish high-speed network has been developed in two areas: on the one hand, the lines that connect Madrid with the north and northwest of the country, which originate and end at the Madrid-Chamartín-Clara Campoamor, and on the other, the high-speed lines to the east, east and south, with origin and destination in Madrid-Puerta de Atocha. The new high-speed tunnel between the two stations in the capital -which has required an investment of 338 million euros- will allow both networks to be connected.