THE transportation deficit is still relevant. A claim for communications from the region that comes from afar returns recurrently. Already at the end of the 18th century, the Royal Economic Society of La Rioja Castellana – one of the first examples of our regionalism – demanded … the improvement of cart roads to benefit the commercial development of an incipient industry. Similar arguments to those used today in the railway debate, revitalized after years of loss of links and frequencies. After reaching its maximum diffusion a couple of decades ago, two crises, the economic crisis of 2008 and the coronavirus health crisis, have cut off the map of La Rioja’s connections with other regions.
The 21st century marks, therefore, the heyday and decline of the Rioja train. The undoubted milestone was the direct connection with Madrid, which provided its first service just twenty years ago. First, the Altaria, and four years later, the current Alvia. Getting to the capital of Spain from La Rioja costs only 3 and a half hours, two less than the route traveled between the turn of the century, uncomfortable and much less popular. The connection with the High Speed Railway in Plasencia de Jalón opened a new panorama of possibilities and the Alvia is currently approaching one hundred thousand passengers per year from the stops in Rioja.
Little else has changed since then in that destination. La Rioja has only had one direct train to Madrid since its debut in 2004, there have never been two frequencies, as is now claimed (three if you count the current one), while the new proposal from the Ministry of Transport looks at the path of west.
But the train to the capital was not the only one that began to travel through the Rioja stations in those first years of this century. For example, connections were launched in 2001 with Valladolid, where it could already be reached following other longer routes, and Vitoria, a curious route via Miranda, a destination that in a few years will debut the High Speed.
Fourteen daily trains
It was a time of expansion, of novelties, in which the railway was reinforced on its traditional lines. They were good times and as an example, the schedule panel of the Logroño station from 2006, less than twenty years ago. With exceptions on weekends, from there, fourteen trains arrived and left every day to Barcelona (with two night services and one daytime), Madrid, Bilbao, Zaragoza, Valladolid, Salamanca, Vitoria, Vigo and La Coruña. In addition, Occasionally other frequencies were included and the Friday train to Valencia and Alicante, with stops in tourist destinations such as Salou or Peñíscola. Lugo, Zamora, León and Oviedo were also accessible destinations for Riojans on these routes.
This prolific map, however, began to fade in 2009. The economic crisis had broken out, and lean times were coming. The first lines to go down were those of Valladolid and Vitoria due to the regional government’s refusal to renew the co-financing agreement for the line it had with Renfe. Ángel Sáinz Yangüela, then general director of Transport, spoke of the service as “low demand and high cost.”
It was a time of cuts, in which another of the trains with fewer passengers, the night train that linked Barcelona and Gijón, was abolished in 2013, with which the region said goodbye to the also ephemeral Asturian connection. Meanwhile, connections with Miranda de Ebro continued to be eliminated, a fundamental link for many itineraries, the route to the Valencian Community, as well as certain stops in municipalities in the region.
From crisis to crisis
The routes were reduced in a network similar to the current one, although there was still room for cuts. The great economic crisis of 2008 was the first blow to railway communications, the next came with the coronavirus. The state of alarm reduced mobility to a minimum. However, once the confinement passed, only a third of the services were recovered. At the beginning of summer, only one train to Madrid, another to Zaragoza and the Bilbao-Barcelona ran through La Rioja three days a week. The daily connection with Barcelona was recovered shortly after, as well as two frequencies to Zaragoza. The newly launched Alvia, which connected Logroño with Salamanca and Galicia, lasted a short time, reducing Rioja communications to the minimum expression, which it currently assumes.
At the beginning of the century, connections with Valladolid and Vitoria were launched, the first to be eliminated, in 2009.
The Barcelona-Galicia hotel train and the journey to Salamanca were the victims after the pandemic
The situation coincides with the opening of the new Logroño station, which now receives only six trains a day.
The pandemic ended up sacrificing the historic Barcelona-La Coruña hotel train for La Rioja – leaving only one railway to Barcelona – and the popular route to Salamanca, used for years by many Rioja students (and family and friends) on their trips. comes and goes.
In two decades, Logroño has gone from having fourteen trains practically daily to having only six – three to Zaragoza and one to Bilbao, Barcelona and Madrid –, with two more added on weekends. The current stops, in Haro, Alcanadre, Rincón de Soto, Calahorra and Alfaro, were previously much more numerous. For example, the jug city had six trains a day not too long ago. Likewise, traveling by train to La Coruña, Valencia and Valladolid without transferring is a thing from another era.
It is paradoxical that the loss of railway services has coincided with the two major infrastructure works in Logroño, the burying of the track and the new station, whose inauguration in 2011 coincided with a critical moment for the Riojan network. A modern infrastructure for services in decline. The previous terminal lived in better times, remembered with nostalgia by many not only because of the obvious nostalgia but because the movement that it sustained between its classic lobby and the platforms, where several trains coincided, has been lost.
Now, the future moves between the short term represented by the demand for two new frequencies with Madrid through Calahorra and the long term, which is seen for the integration in the High Speed with the need for new connections with Miranda de Ebro (or Pancorbo) and with Castejón. Projects that have been on the table for many years, even decades, with no near horizons that would return La Rioja to the railway map.
