Northwest Atlantic Corridor
Evidence

The figures that hold up the case

International rail share, port traffic, commissioning of the Pajares Bypass and business demand from the Spanish northwest. We compare the evolution of rail traffic with port traffic to gauge the opportunity cost of the corridor delay.

Data verified as of: Jun 2026 · every figure links to its official source
Key indicators

Rail share · Port of Gijón (2024)

4.07%

Of every 100 land-based tonnes at the port, only 4 leave by rail. −46.9% vs 2019 — an all-time low in the OFE series: the ports are left stranded without rail.

3.800 M€

Pajares · investment executed

Pajares Bypass (León–Pola de Lena HSL), in service since 29 Nov 2023.

3.100

Freight trains · Pajares 2024

52.5% of all movements through the tunnel; +28% in 2025.

4 M€

Downstream · works awarded

Only the Oviedo–Gijón drafting (32 km) out of ~€68 M estimated. Works not yet tendered.

0.7%

Intl. rail share · Spain

On tonnes in international traffic 2024 (OTLE Edition XIII).

Evidence · the three territories

One maritime axis, opposite rhythms: the ports of the north-west Atlantic Corridor

Asturias and Galicia share the corridor's maritime frontage. The paradox is glaring: the smallest port —Marín— has Spain's 2nd-highest rail modal share (behind only Santander), while Vigo, the largest in containers, ships nothing by rail, and the Langosteira basin, the one with the most tonnage, still has no rail connection. This is not an Asturian challenge alone.

PortTerritory2024 trafficΔ 24/23ContainersRail shareTEN-T network
Port of GijónAsturias15.88 Mt-17,2%71,852 TEU4.07%Core network · 2030
Port of A CoruñaGalicia14.69 Mt+5,1%34 TEU1.37%Core network · 2030
Port of Ferrol-San CibraoGalicia6.67 Mt-21,1%14,209 TEU0.00%Comprehensive network · 2050
Port of VigoGalicia5.50 Mt+14,0%298,005 TEU0.01%Comprehensive network · 2050
Port of AvilésAsturias4.65 Mt+1,5%—1.48%Comprehensive network · 2050
Port of Marín and the Ría de PontevedraGalicia2.57 Mt+21,3%48,255 TEU13.93%Comprehensive network · 2050

Tonnage: OPPE Statistical Yearbook 2024 (final figures). Rail share: % of the port's land-based traffic moved by rail (Observatorio del Ferrocarril en España, OFE 2024, now published port by port). Containers in TEU.

Marín · Pontevedra

13,93%

rail modal share — Spain’s 2nd-highest, just behind the leader Santander (14.14%). And rising: +18.5% versus 2019, the only port in the corridor gaining rail share while the rest lose it. Galicia’s smallest port by tonnage is the national champion of ship-to-rail intermodality.

Vigo · Pontevedra

0,01%

Galicia’s largest container port (298,005 TEU) moves practically nothing by rail: 407 t in 2024 (0.01%), after only 32 t in 2023.

A Coruña · Punta Langosteira

8,46 Mt

in the outer basin still with no rail connection. The only Galician port in the core network; its rail access is under construction (€123.5M; due to operate in 2027).

Galicia · what each port is made of

Same frontage, opposite cargoes

The breakdown by cargo type (2024) explains the rail paradox. A Coruña lives off liquid bulk (Repsol, in the outer basin still without rail); Vigo is almost entirely general cargo —automotive and containers—, precisely the freight most suited to rail that today travels by road; Marín splits dry bulk and general cargo, and is the only one moving a meaningful share by rail.

Liquid bulkDry bulkGeneral cargo
Port of A Coruña14.55 Mt
Port of Ferrol-San Cibrao6.65 Mt
Port of Vigo5.35 Mt
Port of Marín and the Ría de Pontevedra2.54 Mt

Percentages over the sum of each port's three main categories. Source: OPPE Statistical Yearbook 2024 (final figures).

The inland axis · León

The dry port that never arrives, and the spur that does work

León is the corridor's inland hinge between the Meseta and the northern ports. But its major logistics node —the Torneros dry port— has been on the drawing board since 2010 without being built, while the north-west freight axis concentrates in Valladolid. The most tangible intermodal case today is a steel-industry spur linking to the Port of Gijón.

Torneros-Grulleros Logistics Platform

Planned / not yet tendered

The "León dry port": ~198 ha next to the León-Palencia line, promoted by SEPES. Planned since 2010, development not yet tendered; the rail terminal is not in the initial phase.

La Placa Intermodal Platform (Ponferrada)

Planned / not yet tendered

Terminal on line 800, conceived as a dry port toward A Coruña, Vigo, Ferrol and Madrid (€19.4 M). Not tendered; explicit backing from the Castilla y León regional government.

Villadangos del Páramo Terminal

Operational

The most tangible intermodal case around León: a steel branch (Network Steel, ~400,000 t/year expected) connected to the Port of Gijón. €20.5 M invested.

León Mercancías Terminal

Operational, underused

ADIF intermodal terminal (operated by Transfesa+Slisa since 2020). Small scale (~1,600 ILUs/half-year in 2019), well below the TEN-T threshold of 800,000 t/year.

And meanwhile · 130 km to the south

The north-west freight node is being built in Valladolid, not in León

While Torneros remains unurbanised, Adif is building Valladolid’s new freight Rail Complex (overall project of 71,8 M€), awarded to UTE Lantania + Copcisa and financed with NextGenerationEU (PRTR) funds. It is the facility that turns the city —not León— into the rail hub of the north-west Meseta.

2nd-phase investment
61 M€
Surface area
230,000 m²
Tracks ≥ 750 m
9
Status
under construction (~2026)

In December 2024 Adif also tendered the lease of a maintenance workshop for freight rolling stock in Medina del Campo (Valladolid) (22,550 m², a 15-year concession) — an operation the press described as completing “the gutting of León’s railway hub”.

FuenteMITMA· dic 2023Diario de León· dic 2024El Mercantil· dic 2024

The corridor that does not run

110 t

is all that travelled by rail from Galicia to León in a whole year (2020). Against the 600,000+ tonnes Galicia sent to Portugal by rail. Line 800 —the north-west freight axis— is at the project-design stage, and the figure shows it: the inland rail corridor simply does not run.

328,099 t

León → Galicia by rail (2020). The flow exists east-to-west, but the return is almost nil: a deeply asymmetric corridor.

359,946 t

Asturias → León by rail (2020): the second origin of the freight reaching Castilla y León. The evidence of the León-Gijón corridor north-to-south.

Eurostat tran_r_rago (NUTS 2), 2020 — five-yearly series, latest year available. ES41 = the whole of Castilla y León.

Regional rail, in retreat

Where Europe wants to double rail freight, the north-west is losing it

Tonnes loaded by rail in each region —the only official regional figure—. Between 2015 and 2020, the latest year published by Eurostat, Galicia lost a third of its rail freight and Castilla y León more than a quarter. The axis is not merely underused: it is shrinking, in the exact opposite direction to the European goal of doubling rail freight by 2050.

Galicia · freight loaded by rail

tonnes/year
3.2M
2.0M
20152020

Change 2015 → 2020: -35.9%

Castilla y León · freight loaded by rail

tonnes/year
1.5M
1.1M
20152020

Change 2015 → 2020: -28.6%

Freight unloaded falls even further: −40.6% in Galicia and −33.9% in Castilla y León between 2015 and 2020. Tonnes loaded/unloaded by rail in each region. ES41 = the whole of Castilla y León (Eurostat does not break down to the province of León). Five-yearly series; the regional figure has not been updated since 2020.

FuenteMITMA · OFE· dic 2025OEPB · Puertos del Estado· dic 2024RTPA· ene 2025Puertos del Estado· oct 2025Eurostat· ene 2023MITMA· dic 2023Diario de León· dic 2024El Mercantil· dic 2024

01The investment already made

€3,800 M in the Pajares Bypass, and freight demand is already there.

The Pajares Bypass — the León - Pola de Lena high-speed line with two 24.6 km base tunnels — entered commercial service on 29 November 2023. Since then, reality already exceeds the official forecast: nearly a million Madrid-Asturias passengers and, above all, 3,100 freight trains (52.5% of all movements through the tunnel), accelerating by +28% in 2025. The northern end of the Corridor is paid for and proves real demand.

Freight via Pajares

3,100

trains in 2024 · 52.5% of all movements through the tunnel

Jan-Oct 2025
nearly 4,000 trains
2025 growth
+28%
Tonnes / month
~260,000 t

Main commodities: steel products, cereals, timber.

FuenteEl Mercantil· nov 2025

Passengers · year 1

900,000

Madrid-Asturias passengers between Nov 2023 and Nov 2024 · +113.2% Madrid-Oviedo

Gijón-Sanz Crespo station
340,691 passengers
Oviedo station
263,441 passengers
Initial MITMA forecast
600,000/year

The AVE began service in May 2024 and Avlo in July; that explains why the year-1 figure already comfortably exceeds the official forecast of 600,000.

FuenteRENFE· nov 2024MITMA · OFE· dic 2025

02The bottleneck

But downstream, Pajares flows into a commuter-rail project.

Everything leaving the northern mouth of the Bypass runs down line 130 (Pola de Lena – Gijón, 73 km) — the only corridor connecting the northern exit of Pajares with Mieres, Oviedo, the Asturian triangle (Villabona-Lugones-Serín), Gijón and, via Avilés, the ports. It is the industrial backbone of Asturias and of the peninsular interior. The only work tendered on this stretch is a renewal of the Oviedo – Gijón C1 commuter line of ~€68 M estimated — and so far only €4 M awarded to draft the project. It is not a freight work, not a European standard, not a corridor.

Downstream · work in progress

Full renewal Oviedo – Gijón (32 km)

Renewal of track, electrification, infrastructure, loading gauges and station rationalisation on the Oviedo – Gijón conventional / Cercanías C1 line. It is the only work tendered on the downstream stretch of Pajares so far in the plan.

Type of work
Cercanías C1 (commuter / short distance)
Estimated cost
~68 M€
Awarded
4 M€

Only the project drafting has been awarded (Aecom-Amberg JV, Jul 2025). The works (~€68 M estimated) are not yet tendered.

FuenteADIF· jul 2025

What the work does NOT cover

Four basic TEN-T requirements for the rail freight network that the ongoing work does not include:

  • UIC gauge (1,435 mm)

    The work renews the existing track in Iberian gauge (1,668 mm). No third-rail project nor new UIC platform on the Pola de Lena – Gijón stretch.

  • 740 m sidings

    EU standard for long freight trains. Not included in the scope of the Oviedo – Gijón project.

  • ERTMS for freight

    ERTMS completed on the Pajares Bypass; no confirmed extension to the conventional Pola de Lena – Gijón stretch.

  • Capacity for intensive mixed passenger + freight traffic

    Line 130 is single-track with fragmentarily electrified sections and shares the same alignment with the C1 commuter line.

Without a downstream strategy, the €3,800 M already invested in Pajares is neutralised.

A European corridor is one end to end. If the northern exit of the Bypass ends in a conventional line with no UIC gauge, no 740 m and no freight ERTMS, the freight growing at Pajares will not be able to continue its European route. The consequence is already being measured: 4.07% rail share at the Port of Gijón, 1.48% at Avilés, and a 0.7% international rail share for the entire Spanish system.

FuenteADIF· jul 2025

03The ports are left stranded

For every 100 tonnes entering through Gijón, only 4 leave by rail — and Avilés posts the steepest maritime-rail decline in Spain.

The two Asturian ports move around 20 million tonnes a year and are the maritime end of the Atlantic Corridor. With no European-standard rail network downstream of Pajares, what arrives and leaves by ship stays on the truck. The OFE series documents it since 2015: Gijón has gone from 12.94% to 4.07%, Avilés from 5.6% to 1.48%. Gijón's 2024 fall is energy transition (coal), but the freight that is growing — containers and liquid bulk — is precisely the kind that would most need rail.

Total traffic — Port of Gijón

tonnes/year
19.1M
19.2M
15.9M
202220232024

Change 2023 → 2024: -17.2%

Total traffic — Port of Avilés

tonnes/year
4.6M
4.7M
20232024

Change 2023 → 2024: +1.5%

  • 2024: All-time record (RTPA / APA).

Rail modal share — Port of Gijón

% land access
12.94
6.57
4.07
201520192024

Rail modal share — Port of Avilés

% land access
5.60
7.90
4.15
1.48
2015201920232024

Avilés · maritime-rail

-83%

cumulative since 2019 (OFE 2024 series): the steepest maritime-rail decline of all Spanish ports.

Gijón · maritime-rail 2024

-31.8%

year-on-year (23→24); -46.9% cumulative since 2019. Gijón concentrates 5% of the national maritime-rail total. Third port of the Atlantic-Cantabrian seaboard after Bilbao and Santander.

Gijón's 2024 fall is energy transition, not infrastructure — but the freight that is growing is exactly the kind that needs rail.

The collapse is concentrated in solid bulk (coal at the commercial quays), not in the rest of the traffic. Containers and liquid bulk are growing — they are the part of the port that would benefit most from a proper rail access, and the one the downstream bottleneck is blocking.

  • +20% in container tonnes 2024
  • +11.2% in TEU (71,852)
  • +31% in liquid bulk

Land connectivity · Port of Gijón 2024

Breakdown of freight traffic entering or leaving via the port's land accesses, per the Port Authority's 2024 Annual Report.

Road
5.46 Mt
Rail
578 kt
Pipeline
0.84 Mt

18,486 wagons moved (8,630 loaded, 9,856 empty). The split is roughly 90% truck · 10% pipeline · 4% rail across land accesses.

Avilés invests to reverse it

2.8 M€

Extension of 1.2 km of internal rail network; total network of 6,120 m in Iberian and metric gauge. 100% funded by the Recovery and Resilience Facility (EU).

FuenteDiario El Canal· feb 2023OEPB · Puertos del Estado· dic 2024Autoridad Portuaria de Avilés· dic 2024RTPA· ene 2025Autoridad Portuaria de Gijón· dic 2025MITMA · OFE· dic 2025Transporte XXI· sep 2024

04Against Europe's will

While Europe seeks to shift freight onto rail, Spain's international rail share drops to 0.7% — and the region ends up at the wrong end of the map.

A European corridor is justified by its capacity to move international freight. But in Spain, according to OTLE Edition XIII, rail moves barely 0.7% of international tonnes — versus 21.4% for road and 77.7% for shipping. And it is getting worse: since 2019 road's international share has risen by +1.8 pp while rail's has fallen -0.1 pp. Without a genuinely capable north-west corridor, that shift is impossible from the western end of the peninsula — and Asturias, with its ports and its businesses, pays the bill for the inconsistency.

Modal split of international freight transport in Spain — 2024 (% of tonnes)

%
  • Rail
    0.7%

    Target mode of the Atlantic Corridor. -0.1 pp vs 2019.

  • Air
    0.2%

    Stable share since 2021.

  • Road
    21.4%

    +1.8 pp vs 2019. Rising while rail falls.

  • Maritime
    77.7%

    Dominant mode. -1.8 pp vs 2019.

Current figureReference

And one step up…

In the national modal split (all freight, not only international), Spain moves 3.9% by rail in land t-km (2024), versus 16.6% EU average and 30% for Austria: a 12.7-point gap that is widening, because Spain is falling from 4.2% in 2023. The MITMA 2030 target is 10% nationally, with €8,442 M committed in the Mercancías 30 Plan. Without a European-standard north-west network, that target is unreachable from Asturias.

Spain national
3.9%
EU-27 average
16.6%
Spain 2030 target
10%

Rail modal share — international comparison (% of land transport)

%
  • Gijón
    4.07%

    Rail share of the port's land traffic in 2024 (OFE).

  • Avilés
    1.48%

    Rail share of the port's land traffic in 2024 (OFE).

  • Spain
    3.9%

    National rail share in land t-km (2024). Falling from 4.2% in 2023.

  • Spain 2030 target
    10%

    MITMA Mercancías 30 Plan goal (€8,442 M committed by 2030).

  • EU-27
    16.6%

    Average of the 27 EU countries in land t-km (2024).

  • Austria
    30%

    Austria and Lithuania exceed a 30% rail modal share.

Current figureTargetReference

National intermodal wagon 2024

-7.9%

While full-wagon load grows +2.9%, intermodal — the piece that most needs a European corridor — is shrinking.

Spain · rail 2024 vs 2019

-16.8%

Net tonnes moved by rail still 16.8% below the pre-pandemic level. Train-km -7.1% and net t-km -12.9% vs 2019.

Renfe Mercancías · share

42.8%

of net t-km (half of what it was in 2011). In t-km the private operators already overtake it (56.4% vs 42.8%), but Renfe remains 1st in net tonnes (47.9%) and in train-km: the shift is real, not yet total.

The figure that changes the story: where there is capacity, rail grows.

In Q4 2025 the liberalised segment rose +12.4% in net tonnes (Captrain +23.5%, Medway +49.2%). The demand is there; in the north-west what is missing is supply —infrastructure that allows offering services—, not demand.

FuenteMITMA · Observatorio del Transporte y la Logística en España· abr 2026MITMA· dic 2024Eurostat· mar 2025MITMA· jul 2023CNMC· jul 2025

Cercanías Asturias: sixth-largest network in Spain

After the peak of 7.3 million passengers in 2023 — driven by free season tickets — the network falls back to 6.7 million in 2024, still well above the pre-pandemic level. The Cercanías Asturias 2017-2030 Plan (MITMA, 15 Feb 2024) commits €1,586 M, of which €458 M is rolling stock: 35 new metric-gauge trains began manufacturing in February 2024.

Cercanías Asturias passengers — OFE series

passengers/year
4.7M
2.9M
7.3M
6.7M
2019202020232024

Change 2023 → 2024: -8.2%

Cercanías Asturias Plan

1,586 M€

Total investment committed through 2030 (MITMA, 2024).

Mobilised
1,061 M€
Rolling stock
458 M€
Metric-gauge trains
35 new

FuenteMITMA· feb 2024

Asturias is Spain's sixth-largest commuter (Cercanías) network. After the 2023 peak (driven by free season tickets), 2024 falls back by 8.6%. The service remains well above pre-pandemic levels.

Business demand · peninsular north-west

FADE, CEG and FELE call for €8,000 M so as not to lose the Atlantic Corridor

In December 2023 the business federations of Galicia, Asturias and León, backed by CEOE, quantified for the first time the cost of not completing the corridor: €7,884 M of additional investment (rounded to €8,000 M in the public statement) to triple regional rail traffic toward the 2040 horizon. The demand complements the investment MITMA has already committed in Asturias for this programme.

01Investment demanded

7,884 M€

Galicia + Asturias + Castilla y León. Signed by CEG, FADE, FELE and CEOE.

02MITMA · Asturias Corridor

2,800 M€

Investment committed 2024-2030

03NW rail traffic

7 → 20.4 Mt

Projection to the 2040 horizon per the business study.

04Employment impact

23,900

Associated jobs · +€4,500 M GDP by 2040

Projected annual economic impact: +€2,750 M in rail revenue

The CEG-FADE-FELE study puts the additional rail revenue at €2,750 M/year, 23,900 direct and indirect jobs and a regional GDP increase of €4,500 M by 2040 if the investment is completed. It is the quantitative counterweight to the outstanding investment.

FuenteEl Mercantil· dic 2023MITMA· jun 2024

The argument behind the figures

These series underpin the case for the corridor: what Europe requires, where the network fails and what we ask for.

Every figure links to its official source

Sources, criteria and limitations of each figure in the monitor on the methodology page.

Main sources: OFE — 2024 Report (MITMA) · OTLE Edition XIII 2025-2026 (MITMA)

Next review: after the OFE 2025 release (Dec 2026)