“Total misuse of public money.” For the Corredor Oeste platform, there is only one possible definition for ADIF destroying 35,000 sleepers that could resurrect an old freight line. At least, that’s what they argue in the fight to restore the Astorga – La Baneza line, a historic claim to boost the local economy.
origin. In April 2025, transport provided almost four million euros for the drafting of the project for the modernization of the Len-La Granja conventional railway line. The award means “steps ahead of the work tender, which will involve extensive renewal of this 89 km road, replacing all the components that make it up (ballast, sleepers, rails and turnout) with new and high performance ones.”
“This route, which is part of the Atlantic Corridor and the rest of the line between León and the capital of A Corinna,” was the idea from the first to modernize “to improve the capacity and reliability of the line and contribute to the promotion of freight traffic,” explained Transport.
What happened? That this intervention involves, as we say, replacing components such as sleepers with better performance. Nothing out of the ordinary as the state kept a large stock of sleepers to carry out track repairs and necessary maintenance work. In total, 35,000 sleepers await their turn.
These elements will be destroyed, they denounced from the Corredor Oeste platform. However, they assure that these sleepers can be used on the Astorga – La Bañeza line, a freight section that has been struggling to reopen for years. This is why they believe that the destruction of these sleepers is, as we put it, “a complete misuse of public money”, in the words of a local newspaper report. Infobierzo.com.
What did they ask for? According to this platform, destroying those 35,000 sleepers is a mistake as they can be released to another line to claim them. They reassure, gather information being chained Components that are manufactured between 2018 and 2023 will therefore have a very long useful life ahead of them.
And furthermore, they assure that “recycled” material is not new. They explain that similar steps have already been taken in the access branch of the Villadangos del Páramo Industrial Estate (Leon), so taking advantage of this material is a way to reduce the cost of reopening a dead line that could encourage industry in the region.
Astorga – La Baneja. This railway line which Corredor Oeste claims to convert into a freight line stretches just over 20 kilometers which is out of service. The line was part of a railway known as the Western Corridor that traversed western Spain from north to south.
The line was designed in the 19th century and operated in the 20th century with more or less regular movement of passengers and goods. However, the line ceased passenger service in 1984 due to low passenger volumes. Since then, it remained active as a freight line until it was definitively closed in 1996, they explain. Travel and Rail.
Corredor Oeste aims to restore the line with very little investment. They assure that since the train line is already built, about 25 million euros will be invested, since they will not have to occupy more land. So it will be a matter of renewing all the components and that’s where the stock of 35,000 sleepers that will be destroyed if something doesn’t change comes into play.
An abandoned corridor. We count as Xataka A few months ago, the western corridor has been abandoned since the late 90s of the last century. At the time, the line was intended to connect Asturias with Seville and was designed to transport passengers and goods, but both fell into disrepair and parts were closed or abandoned.
Today, parts of those tracks have been converted into greenways, a project that reclaims old train tracks as long tracks on which to walk, run or cycle. In this case, this Astorga – La Bañeza section remains an abandoned road and has not been converted into a greenway.
For years, the municipalities through which the old train line passes, as well as organizations such as Corridor Ost, have been pushing to restore the old route. They assure that it can help industrially strengthen an area with serious population problems. In 2022 they maintained that more than 600,000 journeys made on the A-66 today could be captured by this railway.
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