{"id":533379,"date":"2026-09-08T18:57:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T08:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=74125"},"modified":"2026-09-08T18:57:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T08:57:51","slug":"portugal-to-reopen-beira-baixa-railway-on-20-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=533379","title":{"rendered":"Portugal to reopen Beira Baixa railway on 20 September"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Beira Baixa railway had been severely damaged during storm Kristin in late January. It has taken rail infrastructure manager Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP) until now to restore the line. The railway will reopen on 20 September, which means that redundancy will return to a key route to Spain.<\/strong>
\n<\/span>During storm Kristin, two landslides resulted in infrastructural instability. Portugal had to cancel traffic on the route as a consequence.<\/p>\n

The rehabilitation of the railway took place under particularly difficult conditions, says IP. It had limited access to the site. There was little space for equipment and moving materials to the location also proved to be a challenge. Moreover, temperatures were high during the rehabilitation period.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the Beira Baixa railway between Mouriscas-A and R\u00f3d\u00e3o is set to reopen in 12 days. IP managed to stabilise the slopes around the tracks, including with two reinforced concrete structures. The railway line, telecommunications, grounding systems, and other affected railway infrastructure were also fully restored. In total, the restoration cost \u20ac3.4 million.<\/p>\n

Formerly important for coal, now mostly for redundancy<\/h2>\n

The Beira Baixa railway used to play an important role in supplying a local coal power plant. These freight movements stopped in late 2021 when the coal power plant closed. As of 2026, the railway is particularly important as a backup route for the nearby Beira Alta line.<\/p>\n

The latter serves as a corridor for international freight transport. IP completed renovations on that railway in September 2025, but those were met with criticism from the operators.<\/p>\n

The upgrade enabled 750-metre trains to run on the Beira Alta railway, but at a lower speed and with double traction. This has failed to make the line more attractive, Portuguese media reported<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

The reopening represents “much more than the completion of a project,” according to IP president Paulo Carmona, but the return of “an essential rail link for the population, after the interruption caused by bad weather.”<\/p>\n

“Infraestruturas de Portugal’s priority was to recover the infrastructure safely and to do so as quickly as possible,” Carmona said. It was “carried out under particularly complex conditions, but which allowed not only the restoration of traffic but also the reinforcement of the infrastructure and the improvement of its safety and resilience.”<\/p>\n