Report on Shenzhen-Jiangmen railway collapse documents regulation violations

Spain’s Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has launched a EUR 2.3 million tender for two feasibility studies designed to assess how the Madrid–Barcelona HSL can be upgraded to support 350 km/h operation and bring the journey time between the two cities to under two hours. The work will also consider new access approaches at both ends of the line and the construction of two additional high-speed stations at Parla and El Prat de Llobregat. One of the studies will examine, in two stages, options to enhance the Madrid–Barcelona–French border high-speed corridor and to establish new access routes into Madrid and Barcelona, while the second will focus specifically on the viability of the proposed El Prat de Llobregat station. The planned increase in permitted speed on the Madrid–Barcelona HSL would restore the route to its original design capability of 350 km/h, capitalising on its alignment and deploying Aerotraviesa, a cutting-edge Spanish technology. By doing so, journey times on all commercial services would fall below the two-hour threshold, reinforcing the route’s competitiveness and providing additional capacity for more services in future, both long-distance and on intermediate sections. A new approach to Madrid Chamartín Clara Campoamor is also being considered from the east and south, offering an alternative to the current tunnel linking the station with Madrid Puerta de Atocha Almudena Grandes and giving trains from the Mediterranean and Andalusia a new entry into the capital. This connection would also allow services on the Barcelona–Madrid corridor to start or finish at Chamartín without relying on the existing standard-gauge tunnel. As part of the study, the potential for a new high-speed station at Parla will be examined. The station would be linked to Madrid’s Cercanías network and would enable north–south high-speed services between Andalusia and Catalonia to call at the municipality. Parla sits within a catchment area of more than 1.26 million residents, with 4.7 million people able to reach the station within 15 minutes and around 6 million within an hour. The evaluation will assess the station’s impact on operations on the Madrid–Seville and Madrid–Levante high-speed lines, in addition to a demand analysis to determine its potential passenger base. The studies also include a new direct high-speed connection from the Madrid–Barcelona line towards north-eastern Spain, allowing services from Lleida to run directly to Barcelona without passing through Camp de Tarragona. This would cut journey times further, ease the current constraints on the Tarragona–Barcelona-Sants section and support future growth along the Mediterranean Corridor. The new link would also provide an alternative approach to the new La Sagrera station, avoiding the Sants–Sagrera tunnel. In the second phase of the feasibility work, once all potential options have been assessed and narrowed down, various infrastructure scenarios will be modelled and compared on the basis of demand forecasts, operational performance and socioeconomic returns, enabling decisions to be taken on the most beneficial alternatives. A final comparative review will then help determine the preferred solution for each section and the order in which works should be delivered. The separate feasibility study for the El Prat de Llobregat high-speed station will consider how the station can support commercial high-speed services through its integration with Rodalies, creating a direct link between the Madrid–Barcelona–French border high-speed route and Josep Tarradellas Barcelona–El Prat Airport. The proposal would make use of the capacity freed up on the current high-speed line between Tarragona and Barcelona, allowing regional services to stop at El Prat by adapting the existing PAET installation. This study will analyse the station’s technical viability, operational role, demand potential and the wider impact on mobility once open, with particular regard to its connection with Cercanías services linking El Prat de Llobregat with the airport.