(Alcoi-Alacant project line)

Along the Alcoi–Alicante railway line, which was never actually operational, there is now a greenway stretching over ten kilometres from near the neighbourhood of Batoi (Alcoi) to a spot known as La Canal.

Project currently at the research and development stage.

The route’s conceptual origins date back to 1873, when Eleuterio Maisonnave was granted the licence to build a railway from Alicante to Alcoi. This project was never brought to life, and similar permits granted subsequently met the same fate. Only the plans presented by noted engineer Próspero Lafarga in 1911 materialised partially, though the construction works were eventually abandoned. 

The greenway’s physical history began in 1926, thanks to a plan for the urgent construction of certain railway routes (the ‘Plan Preferente de Ferrocarriles de Urgente Construcción’). The plan was created to organise Spain’s railway infrastructure, and one of the routes it incorporated was the Iberian-gauge Alcoi–Alicante line. This 66.2 km railway would be the culmination of an idea that had already been around for over half a century. It was an extension of the existing Xàtiva–Alcoi connection. This project – remains of which can be seen on three greenways, including the Vía Verde de Alcoi – was drawn up in 1927 by civil engineer José Roselló Martí: he planned for general earthworks, masonry works and tunnels, drawing inspiration from past solutions designed by Lafarga, but he replaced some metal viaducts with other, cheaper, more functional ones made from reinforced concrete. In 1927, the press reported that the railway would definitely be opened. This was not the case.

Not long before the Civil War, once the earthworks were done and the masonry structures built (bridges and tunnels), only a couple of stations had been created (Alcoi and Agost) and the line had not been electrified yet. After the war, the construction of the remaining stations was put out to tender. However, various difficulties meant the works went on until the 1980s, at which point the project was definitively abandoned, without a train ever having travelled on its tracks. In 2001, a section that started near the neighbourhood of Batoi (Alcoi) and ended at a place known as La Canal was converted into a greenway by the Ministry of Development.

The complex local orography makes this greenway a real gem in terms of infrastructures. It boasts spectacular bridges, like the Pont del Salt and the Pont de les Set Llunes, and numerous galleries of varying lengths up to one kilometre: all examples of the importance of engineering solutions within an area’s scenery.