Spain will invest 2,2 million euros for the reopening of the Somport Tunnel, formerly part of the railway connecting Zaragoza to France through the Pyrenees Mountains. The money will be deployed to define the necessary civil engineering and track work to reconvert and reopen the infrastructure, which is currently used as an evacuation route for the Somport road tunnel.
The reopening of the Somport tunnel is part of a much larger initiative to reinstate international rail traffic along a line closed since 1970: the Zaragoza–Pau. The current outlook of this axis is somewhat complicated, but France and especially Spain are committed to fix the issue. However, the process is likely to be a lengthy one, with some estimates claiming it could reopen by 2032.
Different situations in France and Spain
The plan is to build a new standard gauge cross-border railway line along the older route. The first section, between Zaragozan and Huesca, is already operational, while the Huesca-Canfranc stretch is currently being renovated. From here, however, the railway network still has to be (re)built. There are a handful of kilometres of line, from Canfranc and the Spanish entrance of the old Somport railway tunnel, that need to be built from scratch.
The situation is quite similar on the French side of the border. Here, there is a missing link of about 30 kilometres, between Bedous and the French entrance to the Somport Tunnel. The line restarts in Bedous and goes all the way to Pau and further to Bordeaux and Toulouse. French infrastructure manager SNCF Réseau recently launched a period of public consultations concerning the renovation of the Pau–Somport Tunnel section.
The investments needed for reopening this cross-border section are quite unbalanced. Spain is estimating a total cost of 93 million euros to reinstate rail traffic between Canfranc and the Somport Tunnel. On the other hand, France expects costs to revolve around 450 million euros, especially considering the longer Somport Tunnel–Bedous stretch to be reopened.
Reopening a rail border crossing between Spain and France through the Pyrenees would provide an additional link, alternative to the ones along the TEN-T Mediterranean and Atlantic corridors. It would also create an extra rail connection to Zaragoza, one of Spain’s main logistics hubs. The region of Aragon, of which Zaragoza is capital, has even proposed to launch rail highway services once the line to France reopens.
