Alex Trelinski
METROVALENCIA trains resumed services on Friday to ‘ground zero’ areas of the October floods.
Reconstruction work cost €140 million to get the Valencia Sud to Castello line back to where it was, serving the l’Horta Sud and La Ribera regions.
It means that Metrovalencia lines 1, 2, and 7 are back with the same number of trains as before October 29.
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Night services will be resumed in August on Fridays and Saturdays.
Shuttle bus services meant trips between Paiporta and Torrent took around 90 minutes, with the journey time now down to just 20 minutes.
The first train from a totally-revamped Paiporta station departed at 5.35am.
There were some delays of up to 30 minutes which were put down to signalling and communication issues- something authorities said was common when a new section of line is opened.
There have also been issues with some ticket machines.
Infrastructure Minister, Vicente Martinez Mas, said: “50 kilometres of track has been totally replaced and this is an important day that we have been looking forward to.”
25,000 passengers used services on the reopened lines up to 8.30am with an estimated 250,000 travellers expected across Friday.
Martinez Mas also praised the shuttle bus drivers that were brought in from the Madrid region who ‘covered 1.8 million kilometres in eight months’.
“With their help, many citizens were able to continue working, studying, or going to Valencia,” he said.
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