Two AVE stops in emptied Spain without being a public service?

Alberto Ferreras | Otero de Sanabria (Zamora) (EFE).- Can emptied Spain have two AVE railway stops, one of them located in a town of 31 inhabitants, without being declared a public service? The answer seems obvious, but the reality is that the stations of Otero de Sanabria (Zamora) and La Gudiña (Orense) have not had the Public Service Obligation (OSP) for Renfe since the beginning of the year.

The OSP declaration of the Zamora-Orense section of the Madrid-Galicia high-speed line does benefit the stations of the two provincial capitals but not the two intermediate stops, so travelers from the Zamora region of Sanabria and the orensana de Viana must use little tricks to qualify for discounts of up to 75% enabled for recurring users.

Although the problem may seem insignificant in the eyes of Madrid or the large Galician cities that this railway line links, it is not so if, beyond the 31 residents of Otero de Sanabria, the magnifying glass is put on the more than 2,500 inhabitants that make up Puebla. de Sanabria and La Gudiña, residents of other municipalities in the regions where the Sanabria Alta Velocidad and A Gudiña-Porta de Galicia stations are located or potential Portuguese users.

All of them make, for example, that one weekday at mid-morning in the middle of winter, in the parking lot of the Sanabresa railway station there are almost as many vehicles as there are inhabitants of the district in which it stands.

One of those who has reached the halt is the mayor of Requejo de Sanabria, Santiago Cerviño, who reminds EFE that when the AVE station opened a year and a half ago “they said it stopped in a desert area, that there was nothing and it was a town of 20 neighbors; what people do not realize is that Sanabria has approximately between 8,000 and 10,000 inhabitants and Braganza (Portugal), 25,000”.

A boost for these “depressed” areas

He has no doubt that the AVE is going to be a “revulsion for these depressed and rural areas” and it is already noticeable that on weekends there are more tourists in Sanabria. “Overnight stays have gone up considerably, alarmingly well, it’s working very well,” he says.

Among the regular users of that station is the doctor Ana González, who consults in Puebla de Sanabria but lives in Orense. She confesses to EFE the “trap” in the face of the absurdity that it costs more for frequent travelers to travel on the same train from Orense to Puebla de Sanabria than from Orense to Zamora, despite the fact that the second route is 110 kilometers longer.

They take an Orense-Zamora pass and use it to then get off at Sanabria, even if their destination on the ticket is further away.
Even so, Ana finds this option “a nuisance”, which is why she is considering using the car again and supports the collection of signatures started in Sanabria to force a solution.

The mayor of Puebla de Sanabria, who is also a PSOE senator and president of the Upper House Transport committee, José Fernández, assures EFE that this week he has spoken with the Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, and the problem is being solved.

He blames this on the fact that Renfe has interpreted that the OSP of the Zamora-Orense line does not affect intermediate stops and if the railway company maintains that appreciation, it will have to be the Council of Ministers that amends it with a specific declaration, which can delay the solution somewhat “but they are already working on it”.

Mobility for the rural world

For Fernández, Sanabria has been a “quite vilified” AVE station on the grounds that there was little population but with it the Government defends that “the rural world also needs mobility”, which is why he trusts in a prompt declaration of service in line with the philosophy of “incorporating the demographic challenge into all government action”.

The next objective that is set is that, like the Alvia, the AVE model trains that link Madrid with Galicia stop at Sanabria and La Gudiña, albeit alternately, every day at one of the two stops.

Meanwhile, residents of the area who are not regular users, such as Antonia Prieto, from Ribadelago, are delighted to be able to travel to Madrid in two hours by train to see their daughters and granddaughters and return. His complaint, more than the lack of season tickets, is because many days the trains are full. Without tickets to the emptied Spain. EFE