TramBahía – the new tram-train system on the Spanish southwest coast between Cádiz and Chiclana – has successfully started, the interest and acceptance among the local population is high. Since the official opening on 26 October 2022, passenger demand remains stable – approximately 3 million passengers are expected during the first year of operation of this new interurban service.
We already reported on the opening day of the line, but today we want to give a better impression of the line with a series of recent photos from the first days of operation.
Of the seven tram train vehicles currently available for service – all built by Spanish railway manufacturer CAF almost ten years ago – five are in operation Monday to Friday. On weekends, when the short-distance trains with connections to RENFE trains are cancelled, there are only three. These short-distance trains make up about half of the connections offered on weekdays, they only run on their own section of the route and then offer connections to local trains of the state railway in Río Ardillo. TramBahia uses the main line of the state railway between Cádiz and Río Arillo, then it continues on its own alignment and crosses the city centre of San Fernando like a traditional tramway in the pedestrian zone. The narrow street profile in some places made it necessary to construct three short track loops; at the stops in the pedestrian zone, the tracks were laid slightly lower to allow barrier-free access. Here car traffic is also permitted for residents. The tramtrain continues as an interurban service to Chiclana, runs partly single-track in the small town and ends in an industrial area where the new depot with workshop area and traffic control center is located.
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If the system proves to be so successful in the long run, plans for a second line on the new high bridge over the Bay of Cádiz to connect Puerto Real, Puerto de Santa María and Jeréz de Frontera could become more concrete again, as well as a short extension beyond the main railway station in Cádiz into the old town centre, to provide a much better connection. Due to lack of funds, these plans had been postponed so far, for a quite a lengthy period of time.
Other regions are now showing interest in TramTrain solutions, especially in the Catalonia region. Four projects are currently under preliminary investigation, one of which is a metre-gauge network in the Manresa area. The others concern the Girona area, the region around Tortosa and a connection of the small state of Andoraa to the Spanish railway system. More concrete, however, is the realisation of a TramTrain system in the Tarragona area that has been planned for years and where the first tenders are already “just around the corner” – we reported on this here:
https://www.urban-transport-magazine.com/en/a-tram-train-for-tarragona/
