PortCastelló begins the procedures for the drafting of the construction project of the intermodal station

The Castellón Port Authority will initiate the procedures for the drafting of the construction project for the intermodal station that will be located on the route of the new southern railway access to the port.

This has been agreed this morning after receiving approval for the functional study by the mixed commission made up of the competent administrations in the matter: Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Public Organization Puertos del Estado, Adif, Generalitat Valenciana, Ayuntament de Castelló and Castellón Port Authority. The Government Commissioner for the development of the Mediterranean Corridor in Spain, Josep-Vicent Boira, also attended the meeting.

Now, PortCastelló will commission the construction project and the economic-financial study to promote a productive infrastructure that will mean savings in logistics costs for Castellón companies and will allow to increase the traffic of PortCastelló.

The functional study that today has received the support of the commission analyzes the functionality and operation of the station, after the study that was drawn up on land intermodal demand generated by the industrial production of the province and the maritime demand linked to the traffic of the port of Castellón. It concluded that 39% of the load of the intermodal station will be provided by the port and will allow exporting by train through the Mediterranean corridor annually a good part of the 1.7 million tons of tile and 1 million agricultural products from PortCastelló.

“It will be an infrastructure that will be at the service of the productive sectors of the province”, said the president of the Castellón Port Authority, Rafa Simó. “97.8% of the ceramic industry will be less than 40 kilometers from the station, it will respond to exports from the citrus sector, and will open new opportunities for the chemical and energy sector that is located next to the port.”

The Castellón Port Authority will assume the investment necessary for the development of the intermodal station, whose economic value is around 21 million euros. It will be developed in several phases to optimize its operation and foresees future extensions to respond to the real needs of demand in the coming years. “It is an infrastructure that is planned with a vision of the future and that is not oversized at first nor can it be left small because it reserves an extension that will make everything built valid”, said Rafa Simó.

The intermodal station is designed for an average traffic scenario of 40 trains per week and a total of 90,000 TEUs / year, more than 66,000 UTIs / year and more than 1.7 million tons in the horizon of 2044. Maritime traffic it accounts for 39% of the total trains and the remaining 61% is land traffic.

The intermodal station will be directly connected to the port of Castellón, it will have a mixed UIC and Iberian gauge, with access by electrified track, and located as a through, that is, with a direct connection in both directions, to avoid bottlenecks. In fact, other intermodal stations were visited to learn about their operation and to design the one in Castellón without operating problems. In a first phase, the station is planned with a total of 5 additional routes to the southern railway access to the port, for 750-meter trains: 3 reception / dispatch routes and 2 loading / unloading routes.

A second phase is planned that would add one more reception / dispatch route and 1 more delivery / reception route.The president of the Castellón Port Authority has explained that the intermodal station “is a key infrastructure for the province because it will allow increasing the rail modal share, being more competitive and more sustainable since rail traffic reduces energy costs and reduces impact environmental”.