This is the Government's plan for there to be fewer trucks on the roads

BarcelonaMore freight on trains and fewer trucks on the roads. With this premise, the Government has made public a plan to increase freight transport by train in Catalonia, with a network of four new railway terminals in five years, which will help reduce the dependence—and saturation—of the road network for product transport.

Right now, more than 97% of goods move by road and only between 2% and 4% do so by train, according to calculations by the Department of Territory. These figures are very far from the goals set by the State for 2030—when it expects to have reached 10%—and even further from the European recommendation, which aims to reach transporting 30% of goods by train by 2030.

In an attempt to approach these figures, the Government has set a schedule. It is not only necessary to expand the tracks, say sources from the Department of Territory, but also to create new logistics nodes where goods can enter the train. The regional minister, Sílvia Paneque, explained the plan this Friday during the press conference following the executive council: the first phase plans to allocate 127 million euros to build up to four terminals in the Lleida-Quatre Pilans area, in Vilamalla (in the Empordà), in the Ebre, and in the Penedès by 2031. The goal is to cover a good part of the territory and also provide "good coverage" to the Ponent corridor, through which goods travel from the Mediterranean (from the ports) towards the interior of the peninsula.

"The goal is decarbonization and also the modernization of mobility. We cannot depend only on the road, we need more trains and more rail mobility in terms of sustainability and competitiveness for the Catalan economy," remarked Paneque, who explained that these "railway motorways" will practically allow "putting trucks on trains".

The first terminals to go ahead are those of Lleida-Quatre Pilans and Vilamalla, in Empordà. In these two cases, studies have already been carried out and the next step can now be construction. The one in Vilamalla, however, is linked to the installation of European gauge tracks. The third one will be the Ebre terminal, for which the Government has committed to building a direct branch to the Kronospan wood company plant. From 2028 onwards, the Penedès terminal is planned, in the area that had been reserved for the Logis Penedès logistics center. Finally, government sources point out that the plan also includes recovering the Portbou terminal as a strategic cargo point, a terminal that they currently consider to be "underutilized" and that cannot be allowed to go to waste. "All these terminals will be coordinated with the existing ones, such as the one in La Llagosta and the one in the port of Barcelona," said the minister.

The Government calculates that, once they are up and running, in 2031, these terminals will allow for savings of about 740 million euros per year in externalities, with the reduction of pollution, emissions, congestion and noise. If goods continued to be transported by truck, the cost would be 858 million, compared to the 187 million that they will cost by train.

A challenge that will depend on Adif

Reaching 10%, however, will be a challenge, admit sources from the department itself. On one hand, because it will be necessary to convince companies to change the model with which they distribute their products. Territory wants to study the needs of each sector and product, case by case. In fact, tests have already been carried out with some companies like Freixenet and studies to transport fruit from Rotterdam to Mercabarna.

On the other hand, the calendar also has a decisive constraint: Adif. The network to which the terminals must be connected is mostly state-owned, and the connection permits and actions on the infrastructure depend on this railway administrator. "We are obliged to reach an understanding with the ministry and with Adif," government sources admit.

And is it realistic to have everything up and running in five years? Territory sources defend that it is. Some projects already have informative studies and are advancing towards the construction project and, if everything goes well, the first works could begin in 2028. From Territory, they detail that some connection requests have already been made and they maintain that, in parallel, Adif is already working on sidings, track duplications, and slope correction.

There is still another element that could condition this plan: the coexistence between freight trains and passenger trains on a railway network that is already stressed by frequencies and that has been dragging decades of lack of investment and maintenance. Sources from the department admit that both types of traffic will have to coexist in many sections and that this means planning "more track duplications" and improvements to the network in many points. However, the same sources point out that making trucks disappear –or even reducing their number on the roads– is not a realistic goal. "At most we will be able to prevent there from being more," they conclude.