Basque Ministry of Sustainable Mobility today brings the refurbished Zumaia rail station back into service

- ETS continues to improve the rail infrastructures and is building the engine sheds for Euskotren units

The Basque Government's Ministry of Sustainable Mobility has brought the refurbished Zumaia station back into service from first thing today; Euskal Trenbide Sarea (ETS) has completely refurbished the station in recent months. Accessibility to the terminal has been optimised by extending the underpass and building two lifts.

The Basque Ministry headed by Susana García Chueca has invested €15 million in different Zumaia rail infrastructures in recent years. Along with the work on the station, the centenary-old viaduct over the River Urola has been refurbished, which was completed last October, and construction has recently begun on new engine sheds for Euskotren and a new maintenance area. 

Until today, users accessed terminal from the Hegoalde and Estazioko Kalea crossroads, by means of an underpass with ramps and stairways to reach the platforms. An average of over 1,600 people a day use Zumaia station.  

The previous underpass was 2.4 metres wide, which has been doubled and extended to 5 metres.  The connection to the platform can thus be by lift or stairways. The new lifts are able to hold 8 people and are adapted to people with reduced mobility.  The station's flooring has also been 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.

During her visit to see the finished work this morning, the Basque Minister for Sustainable Mobility, Susana García Chueca, explained that 'we have improved the accessibility and the feeling of safety, two important goals that the Basque Government is working on for the rail network used by Euskotren trains'. The transport minister highlighted the investments that ETS is making in Zumaia and pointed out that 'all these improvements are key to encourage us not to use our cars and catch the train in our daily lives, to go to work or to study; they are, therefore, essential for people to be able to exercise basic rights and to access opportunities'.

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 when the Urola railways stopped operations in 1988.

The end of the work to refurbish the station has overlapped with starting to build the engine sheds. They are on the concourse within the metric gauge track pavement between Bilbao and Donostia, by the Euskotren bus workshops and storage 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 hold 5 units and be used for maintenance work.  They will include a washer and a sanding system to improve the adhesion between wheels and rails, that consists of 8 jets and a 20-m3 silo.

Amara station, which is currently used to stable trains, will disappear when the underground bypass of the Donostia Topo line comes into service, planned for next year. With the goal of optimising the service and to have units 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).

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. 

Finally, ETS is currently working on a new maintenance area there, which will complete the rail infrastructures in the town.