Basque Sustainable Mobility Ministry invests €15 million in the Zumaia railway infrastructure
- Most of the sum will be allocated to build engine sheds for Euskotren units in the run up to the underground bypass of the Topo line
- The works for the complete refurbishment of the hundred-year-old viaduct over the River Urola have been delivered to ETS
The Basque Government's Sustainable Mobility Ministry will invest €15 million in the different Zumaia railways infrastructures. The largest sum will be awarded, this very month, for constructing engine sheds for Euskotren units, to the tune of €7.6 million and with a lead time of 20 months. Work will begin this winter.
That work will overlap with the final part of the refurbishment currently underway at Zumaia station, with a budget of €1.2 million. The Basque Minister for Sustainable Mobility, Susana García Chueca, and the Mayor of Zumaia, Iñaki Ostolaza, have visited the site this morning to see the progress of the works, basically consisting of improving accessibility.
Users currently access the terminal from the Hegoalde and Estazioko Kalea crossroads, using an underpass with ramps and stairways to reach the platforms. An average of over 1,600 people a day use Zumaia station.
The current underpass is 2.4 metres wide and is being extended to 5 metres. The connection to the platform will thus be by lift or stairways. The new lifts will be able to hold 8 people and will be adapted to people with reduced mobility. The station's flooring will also be changed.
The refurbishing of the terminal has been designed in line with the recommendations detected in the study of the network's sensitive points and which are set out in the White Paper of criteria to design the stations of the Basque railway network from a gender perspective, published by ETS.
The building, in the Neo-Basque style, was designed by Ramón Cortázar, the architect from Gipuzkoa. Up until 1981, it was an interchange station between the Bilbao-Donostia/San Sebastián line and the Urola railway one, with two different buildings for each line. One of the buildings was demolished after the Urola railway stopped running in 1988.
The end of the work will coincide with the start of the building of the engine sheds. ETS and Zumaia local council have signed an agreement to coordinate the building of the infrastructure, which will be on the concourse within the metric gauge track pavement between Bilbao and Donostia, by the Euskotren bus workshops and tanks, between the end of the platforms to Donostia and Camino Basusta street. The new facilities, which will occupy a surface area of around 2,000 square metres, will be able to stable 5 units and be used for maintenance work. They will include a washer and a sanding system consisting of 8 jets and a 20-m3 silo to improve the adhesion between wheels and rails.
“Once the Donostia Topo underground rail bypass comes into operation, the current Amara station, that now accommodates trains, will disappear and the frequences can improve", explained Minister García Chueca. With the goal of optimising the service and of having trains at the railway terminal stops for better frequencies, the Basque Sustainable Mobility Ministry has opted for "a strategic point" such as Zumaia to build the engine sheds in addition to the existing train depots in Araso (Irun). This new infrastructure “is important for the whole territory”, stressed the Basque transport minister.
Furthermore, the new train depot involves a new siding layout that will be created from the current dual track pavement, by means of inserting new points running to each of the 5 lanes of the engine sheds from the main track. There will also be a new manoeuvring track or headshunt between the new structure and the south platform of the Zumaia railway station, with a usable length of 80 metres. In this regard, ETS is about to award a contract for a new maintenance area there. The works in this case have a budget of €1.2 million and a lead time of six months.
The Mayor of Zumaia, Iñaki Ostolaza, pointed out that “this work is very important and a great contribution for Zumaia, as it improves the infrastructures and is in line with the Sustainable Mobility Plan on which the local council is working". The plan's goals are to reduce the use of the car, encourage the use of the bicycle and facilitate foot traffic. He thanked ETS for the collaborative endeavour so far and he urged them to continue improving the train and bush timetables and services; "the frequency needs to be half-hourly at the weekends as well, in order to facilitate - with us all working together - citizens' daily lives". The mayor also recalled that Zumaia Council is embroiled in the redevelopment works along the whole of the street where the station is located; they will continue in the coming months with a covered bicycle parking rack, a new skatepark and improvements to the pedestrian pathways.
The retinue then moved to the hundred-year-old viaduct over the River Urola to visit the recently completed refurbishments. The bridge is a total of 102 metres long, with two 51-metre spans, each supported on a central pillar. The deck is made up of two main metallic lattice girders, creating its specific appearance. The pier and abutments are made out of limestone masonry. This support is 9.40 metres wide and has a total height of 12.5 metres.
The work, which cost nearly €5 million, consisted of replacing and strengthening the most affected parts of the metal structure, along with cleaning up the worn points of the piers and abutments. The jobs included optimising the drainage on the track pavement, replacing the ballast, renewing the track, changing the catenary, and sandblasting and repainting the whole viaduct.
The structure over the River Urola is considered to be an important engineering work from the end of the 19th century. On 22 June 1898, the contractor Pedro Gandiaga was awarded the contract - worth 1,588,112 pesetas - to build the Deva to Zumaia railway. The section between Zarautz and Zarautz was awarded to José Ignacio Ostolaza for the cost of 667,480 pesetas. On 3 February 1899, the latter contracted Talleres Miravalles to supply all the metal sections of the line; these included the section over the River Urola in Zumaia, which was 102 metres long, with a central masonry pier which was entrusted to the contractor Amadeo Amador.