TRAVELLING between Madrid and the Costa del Sol will be made much easier from today after a key high-speed train route was finally reopened after more than three months of closure.
Direct services are returning between Malaga and Madrid from Thursday, just in time for the May bank holiday getaway rush.
Earlier this month, private operators Iryo and Ouigo began selling tickets starting from April 27, but a slight delay in construction work pushed the return date back three days.
The high-speed line has remained out-of-action for almost three months after a series of torrential storms triggered a massive landslide in Alora.
The collapse of a 15-metre-high retaining wall on February 4 caused significant damage to the track, requiring engineers to scoop away roughly 150,000 cubic metres of earth.
That is equivalent to 60 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Specialist teams have worked for weeks to dismantle sections of track to replace damaged ballast and sub-ballast, while also cutting into the rock behind the remaining wall using sophisticated drilling equipment.
Heavy rains in the weeks after the collapse made matters worse, halting work for a fortnight and turning the area into a mud pit.
A nearby high-voltage power line also had to be secured before major reconstruction could begin.
Originally, the plan was to repair the affected section of the wall.
But further analysis showed that a much larger portion needed to be removed entirely, contributing to further delays.
The project involved reshaping the slope to make it more stable, demolishing large sections of the wall in phases, and eventually rebuilding the track, electrification and safety systems.
State infrastructure company Adif conducted several ‘test runs’ on Thursday morning to ensure that repairs had worked.
The line will remain only partly operational for several months, with services passing through the affected area running on a single track with strict speed limits.
Iryo is currently offering passengers three services each way – half the normal number prior to suspension.
Ouigo has scheduled two services per day.
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