The project, which is being put out to bid for 3.55 million euros, will provide 169,000 square meters of space for intermodal transportation. <\/p>\n
The port\u2019s president, Santiago Rodr\u00edguez Vega, is confident that the upcoming construction of the rail spur\u2014which will allow broad-gauge trains to run along the new docks on the right bank of the estuary\u2014will serve as an incentive to attract new traffic or recover other traffic that, such as the thermal coal that Endesa used to import for its Compostillas power plant in Le\u00f3n, \u00abmigrated\u00bb to other ports that supposedly offered better conditions. \u00abThis project improves the port\u2019s competitiveness,\u00bb the president emphasizes. <\/p>\n
Rodr\u00edguez Vega, who yesterday chaired the Port Authority\u2019s board meeting where it was agreed to put the railway project\u2014valued at 3.55 million euros\u2014out to bid, emphasized that the rail infrastructure transforms the Valliniello docks\u2014the result of two successive expansions carried out between 2008 and 2014 that cost a total of more than 75 million euros\u2014\u00abinto a high-quality port facility.\u00bb The president refers to the convergence of four factors that make the port attractive for shipping cargo: a draft of up to 14 meters that allows large ships to dock, one kilometer of berthing line (enough to serve two ships at once), a 169,000-square-meter esplanade available to port operators; and now, the icing on the cake: rail connectivity.<\/p>\n
In line with the goal of \u00abintermodality\u00bb in transportation advocated by Puertos del Estado, the Avil\u00e9s docks have for decades offered both broad-gauge and narrow-gauge rail service on the left bank of the estuary (the Ra\u00edces area and the San Juan de Nieva dock), but implementing this on the right bank was still pending. According to Rodr\u00edguez Vega, this will now be achieved \u00abwith a relatively small investment considering the benefits it can bring.\u00bb.<\/p>\n
The importance of having a railroad at the docks is illustrated by the volume of cargo moved by train within the port facilities: 547,421 metric tons in 2012 and 634,373 in 2013, figures that account for 10 percent of the port\u2019s total traffic and that, for the most part, correspond to goods loaded onto ships rather than unloaded from them.<\/p>\n
The port president is working with a timeline under which the rail spur connecting the Valliniello docks to the Adif rail network will be operational by the end of this year. In the longer term, Rodr\u00edguez Vega does not rule out building the spur line that would take the train to the farthest pier in the Port of Avil\u00e9s\u2014the one in the Ra\u00edces expansion\u2014which the train currently does not reach: \u00abOver time, this is a project that could prove worthwhile.\u00bb.<\/p>\n