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Carlos Guisasola Madrid
Madrid
Updated Tuesday, March 26, 2024-00:25
Transport The Basque CAF is left alone in the bid for the mega contract to manufacture the new Madrid Metro trains
A tiny electric lamp illuminates the face of Santa Barbara. From her discreet wooden chapel nestled in the vault of the tunnel, almost 20 meters deep, she watches over the group of miners, pickaxes, who do not stop scratching the earth in their eagerness to continue advancing. There is an image of the aforementioned Virgin, protector of the guild, on each of the two fronts of the gallery. Below El Casar station, on the northern flank of Getafe, activity never stops. There are barely 250 meters left to complete the 2,693 that will serve to connect with Villaverde Alto and extend Metro Line 3. To, in a very near tomorrow, be able to be in the center of the capital in half an hour. The plan of the Ministry of Housing, Transport and Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid, headed by
Jorge Rodrigo
, is for everything to be ready for the last days of this year.
«They are 24-hour jobs in eight-hour shifts. There is a lot of staff shortage because people don't want to work on this. The works are very hard and there is a lot of pressure due to the deadlines and the money that is invested," says
Gonzalo Soubrier
, UTE Metro construction manager on Line 3. For the group of miners (14) the visit of GRAN MADRID to that underground where, as if they were actually artisans of the earth, they continue chiseling the tunnel and acting as surgeons to weave the vaults. Every Wednesday, schools and universities, with their helmets, vests and regulation shoes, drop by and show a completely surprised face. "It's good for people to come and see it so that they are aware of what a work of this magnitude entails," Gonzalo explains.
The future El Casar Metro station.Ángel Navarrete
In a few months, El Casar will become the epicenter of mobility in the south of the Community. It will be the second link with the MetroSur (line 12) and will cover more than one million residents of Getafe, Leganés, Móstoles or Alcorcón. It will also serve as a connection to the Cercanías C-3, as well as several intercity bus lines (447, 448, 488 and N805) and two urban bus lines. There, after a global investment of 110 million euros, which has European
Next Generation
funds , a surface parking lot with more than 500 spaces will be built with a charging area for electric vehicles.
"Here the terrain was much harder"
In the head of
Jesús Zurdo
, the technician responsible for the works on Line 3, everything is captured down to the millimeter. He walks daily over mounds of crystallized gypsum, which were a bit of a surprise when they started scraping the dirt. «The traditional method of Madrid, the pick and shovel, with which
150 kilometers
of the Metro network were completed, on softer terrain (clay), was not useful here. The terrain was much harder and the pickaxe equipment did not give the desired results," he says during the visit, with the civil works of the new Line 3 station almost completed. «We had to opt for the sequential drilling method. If with the traditional one we advanced between 20 and 30 meters per month, with this we reach up to 60/80 meters per month, about three or four a day. The change was not easy, but it has worked," he celebrates.
During the last two years, work has been carried out simultaneously on three fronts. On the one hand, in the new El Casar station, connection of Line 12 and end of Line 3, which this newspaper visited. And on the other, two tunnels: the one that goes from there to Villaverde and the one open at the height of Metro Depot 13 in Villaverde from where work is carried out towards Madrid and Getafe.
One of the machines crushes the stone in a tunnel.Ángel Navarrete
This underground intervention becomes a kind of Tetris in some sections. Like the one that will serve to circulate the suburban maintenance machinery. The machines are small and the operators have to move with extreme precision. A centimeter is a whole world. «Many studies have had to be done and everything recalculated. Making a tunnel in Madrid with two methods and not noticing any variation has been a success," says Jesús.
Some
250 workers
do their part (or rather take it away) in the work of extending the Metro line. "If each visitor took a couple of stones, the work would have been faster," jokes Jesús. Outside the tunnel, tons of debris pile up and, on rainy days like yesterday's, or those to come, they become another small problem. "When it rains this is mud, it turns into mud and stays stuck to the wheels of the machines," Gonzalo acknowledges. And it has been necessary to move more than half a million cubic meters of earth.
A tunnel boring machine: 25 million
There will be those who wonder why there are miners laying out the tunnels or why the sequential method is used, with a rotating machine to face the rock, instead of relying on the famous tunnel boring machine. Jesús Zurdo sheds some light: «Tunnel boring machines are only profitable for works of four or five kilometers. The machine alone costs
25 million euros
. You blow half the budget. And, in addition, it involves a year of waiting for its installation. You advance
400 meters a month
, but..." In the expansion of Line 11, in the Comillas park, this forceful machinery will be used.
The galleries continue to advance from various sides. Some are already having the appearance of the typical Metro passage. Others continue to be polished with concrete, thanks to a large cart that unifies their finish. They remember the extreme care required to pass under the Cercanías or how the collector had to be saved from the passage under the train tracks: «It had to be done by hand. "If you put your hand out, you could touch a car."
Access to one of the tunnels.Ángel Navarrete
But what is the main danger in such a performance? «Without a doubt, the water. Its emergence when digging carries many risks. We have been lucky because the more than two kilometers have been very dry. This makes work slower, but also safer. It allows us to sleep better at night," acknowledges the technician responsible for the works on Line 3. Nine years have passed since the last extension, of 1.4 kilometers between the
Mirasierra
and
Paco de Lucía
stations , on Line 9. . Today the Metro has 302 stations, 294 kilometers of route.
A gigantic salad of concrete and steel is being prepared at a constant pace under the M-45, the Getafe sports city or the Cercanías rails. There are piles up to 26 meters deep and a section freed up to store trains or, in the future, undertake another expansion. "Who knows if we will ever see it," they joke several meters underground where this nerve center for transportation in the south of Madrid, with the help of a pickaxe, is becoming a reality.