What is left of Portugal’s largest rail terminal in Bobadela, north of Lisbon, will remain open until the end of 2032. The government decision delayed the closure of the facility’s North site by six years due to lack of valid alternative locations.
This terminal, owned by Infraestruturas de Portugal, was supposed to close by the end of this year, following a decision in 2021. When Portugal was chosen to host the 2023 World Youth Day, the site of Bobadela’s logistics complex was selected to host the event. Thus, it had to be converted to a green field, with the capacity to accommodate a million people for almost a week and then be used as a public park.
From 3 sites to 1
At that time, the terminal included three sites, covering around 35 hectares: the South, granted to MSC’s subsidiary Medway, had to be released by the end of 2022; the Central, had to be empty by April 2024, following a temporary vacancy from January to August 2023; the North was supposed to be empty by the end of 2026.
The South and Central parks were released and all their traffic moved to the North park. while the Portuguese infrastructure manager had to study a new location for containers. The initiative would cost a total of €100 million. After studying seven alternatives, however, it was decided to keep the terminal as it is today.
“The potential alternative locations for implementing the logistics infrastructure located there do not guarantee equivalent efficiency conditions, and also result in excessive financial burdens and disproportionate execution times”, the Portuguese government explained. Now, IP has to re-evaluate the “adequacy of potential alternative locations” for the North park by January 2032.
The remaining sites, now converted into a park named after Pope Francis Park, will be transferred to the Loures municipality, except for the railway operations access. Currently, Bobadela’s logistics complex has three railway lines, 500 and 600 metres long and covers around 11 hectares with capacity for 2,986 TEU.
