ARCHIVED - Machinery in place for high-speed rail tunnel work to begin in Murcia

Increased security around the Estación del Carmen in Murcia after recent vandalism

The massive drilling machine which will be used over the next few years to create a tunnel leading into the Estación del Carmen railway station in Murcia, enabling AVE high-speed trains to reach the city via an underground route through the southern suburbs, is now in place and being made ready to start work, having arrived in Murcia during the afternoon of 14^th November.

The machine arrived in pieces which will now have to be assembled in situ prior to work actually starting, and when that happens the depth to which digging will be required is approximately 22 metres. In the meantime, though, the activity is all at ground level as dozens of vehicles and staff take part in the operation to get the digging under way.

Coinciding with these developments, Íñigo de la Serna, the Minister for Development in the Spanish government, has reiterated that Murcia will not be “cheated” out of its AVE rail line, adding that work is beginning “in spite of the efforts of some people”. With this phrase he was doubtless referring to the vandals who over the last couple of months have repeatedly damaged and set fire to machinery being used to prepare the AVE line, and he added that such violence could easily have led to the Ministry abandoning the tunnel construction completely.

That, he says, would have been the “easiest solution”, but instead security around the works site has been increased in order to allow the company Aldesa to fulfil the conditions of its contract and construct the underground rail access while removing 1.1 kilometres of overground track.

Meanwhile, campaigners for the underground rail access maintain that when the AVE first arrives in Murcia it will still be on overground tracks, making it necessary for the southern area of the city to be divided by walls alongside them, and continue their protests in an effort to delay the arrival of the first train until the underground access is completed.

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