OHL has done more than 200 works for the Spanish High Speed Railway

With almost 30 years of experience in the context of the Spanish High Speed Railway (AVE, by its Spanish acronym) and references from around 200 executed projects, OHL is firmly established as one of the reference companies in the sector since AVE started in Spain in 1988. In addition, the company boasts a strong 70-year experience in the development of railway infrastructures, which includes relevant projects in different fields such as the construction of station platforms and buildings, mounting of tracks and development of electrical power lines, and the maintenance of high speed and conventional train lines. 

The construction of the new track building in the Atocha Station (Madrid) was OHL’s first project for the Madrid-Sevilla high speed line, launched 25 years ago. Currently, the Group is working on the north-northeast corridor of the Madrid-Galicia HS (Espiño tunnel segment); the platform for the Vitoria-Bilbao-San Sebastian HS (Atxondo-Abadiño segment), the placing of tracks to increase HSR capacity from Madrid (Atocha) to Torrejon de Velasco (Madrid), and the Seville direction segment of the Madrid-Levante HSR connection with the Madrid-Seville HSR.

These projects are added to the company’s vast experience, accumulated since 1988, when the first projects were carried out on the Madrid-Seville HSR, a line where the company has been present uninterruptedly, in maintenance, since its launching in 1992. In almost 200 projects developed by OHL, we can highlight, apart from the mentioned projects, other relevant works, such as the construction of the new rail access to Spain’s north and northeast, in the Soto del Real-Segovia segment (Guadarrama tunnel, portion 2); the platform of the Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona-French border HSR in the Hospitalet-La Torrassa segment; the platform of the Leon-Asturias HSR, La Robla-Tuneles de Pajares segment; the High Speed north-northeast corridor, Ourense-Santiago axis (Lalin-Santiago segment, Boqueixon-Santiago subsegment); and the new Basque Country rail network, Antzuola-Ezkio/Itxaso este (Guipuzcoa) segment.

Railway projects in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas

OHL has also developed substantial railway projects in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and includes, as its flagship milestone, being the first Spanish company to develop a high speed segment abroad, specifically, the 206 km. long Istanbul-Ankara rail in Turkey, which is operational since 2009, and the development of the first construction project awarded to a Spanish company in the rail sector in USA, which involved the extension of the Miami metro up to the international airport of this Florida state city. These achievements add to the company’s participation in Spain’s industrial history, both domestically and abroad, through the Spanish-Saudi consortium Al Shoula, for the execution of the High Speed Haramain project, which connects the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and the execution of large corridor modernization projects in the Czech Republic.

OHL’s position as a market reference is continuously reinforced by the latest technological developments that the company applies to its projects, which include the ballastless track, the development of a patented system for the design, calculation, and validation of optimal solutions for prefab ballastless track supports which varies based on rail traffic and other critical variables, and constructive solutions for its manufacturing and implementation.

In addition, the Group has carried out the development of a distributed radio-based security system, that integrates presence sensors, actuators, traffic lights, and control and signal recording stations which guarantee worker and machine safety in track maintenance projects.

New rail access to the Spanish north and northeast, in the Colmenar Viejo-Soto del Real segment, developed by OHL for the Madrid-Villareal HSR.