Over the border in the province of Málaga there is serious talk of building a rail link between Nerja and Algerciras in Cádiz!

In the meantime, Granada can’t get a train just from the city of Granada to Motril Port – just saying! OK, so will stop bitching about that and continue…

Bear in mind that there is a railway along part of the way down west (Estepona to the City of Malaga; i.e., cercanias or commuter service).

The Minister of Transport for the Central Government, Óscar Puente, is all for it because he knows that it will make money rather than be a subsidised service.

Along some of the way, where there is no rail tracks, there is talk of running alongside the A-7 along reserved, autovía land.

Preliminary studies indicate that it would move around 60,000,000 passengers a year… not bad when considering that the entire population of Spain doesn’t even reach 50 million. But then again, one person might make that trip, there and back, five times a week and count as ten passengers.

The Málaga commuter rail link (cercanias) moved 16m users last year, whereas the high-speed train (AVE) between María Zambrano (Málaga’s main train station) and Atocha in Madrid only moved four million, so yes, Málaga has a lot of people using the existing local lines.

Anyway, first things first being, there has to be a viability study, which beforehand, needs the drawing up of conditions for putting the task up for tender. Such a study would have a budget of 1.2m euros, with an execution period of no longer than 18 months. In other words, the results of such a study would not be known until the end of 2026.

(News: Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)

Keywords: Local Trains, Commuter, Nerja, Algerciras, Cadiz, Viability Study, A-7 Reserved Land

news, andalucia, malaga, costa del sol, axarquia, nerja, local trains, commuter, nerja, algerciras, cadiz, viability study, a-7 reserved land

Reader’s comment: “Wasn’t there once a cable car system that went to and from Granada and Motril. Stopping at smaller towns along the way. Would have been cheaper then railways. But not so good for numbers of people and goods ?” – Patrick Barry Storey

There was a tram, or narrow-gauge railway from Granada to Dúrcal (the old railway bridge has been presevered) but from there it was a cable car to Motril Port (to the Playa El Cable; hence the name). However, it wasn’t for passengers as the cable carried large open skips (for want of a better word) for transporting minerals from the mines. – Martin