Different groups and personalities, including the mayor of Baza Manolo Gavilán and other public representatives, last Saturday demanded “priority” from the Government of Spain for the informative study underway to reopen the Guadix-Baza-Almanzora-Lorca railway lineand also a “state commitment” to the conventional rail freight and passengers “that structure the territories region by region”.
At the event, organized by the Friends of the Baza Region Railway Association and the Guadix Region platform for the Train -with the collaboration of the Granada Altiplano Entrepreneurs Association, the Agapro agricultural and livestock association and La Revuelta de la España Vaciada- they had a special role youth and children from the Bastetana and Accitana regionswho have read the letters sent to the President of the Government in which they requested the return of the train, according to the convening organization in a press release.
In this sense, the president of Friends of the Railroad, Antonio Francisco Martínezafter paying tribute to the people who fight for the reopening of the railway line, “has verified the feasibility, necessity and profitability of this initiative”, while indicating that the train is the “best alternative” for sustainable development at present and future “so that these emptied regions can get ahead”.
Paco Álvarez, from Guadix by the Train; Francisco Almagro, from the Andalusian Federation of Associations of Friends of the Railway (Faaaf); Pepe Ferrer, from the El Labradorcico de Águilas Association, and Manuel Mateos, from the Almeria Platform.
Along with groups from different areas of Andalusia and Murcia, attended by the national parliamentarians Abelardo Vico and Onofre Miralles, the territorial delegate for Education, María José Martín; the Andalusian parliamentarians Olga Manzano and Mariano García, the mayors of Baza, Guadix and Cúllar, Manolo Gavilán, Jesús Lorente and Alonso Segura, respectively, and the mayoress of Caniles, María Pilar Vázquez.
Likewise, the president of the Commonwealth, Olivié Sánchez, local and regional officials of the different political parties, as well as the president of the Savia Foundation, Francisco Casero, as detailed by the aforementioned Friends of the Comarca de Baza Railway association, attended the event.
The event concluded with the award ceremony ‘Quinqué by the train’-“a symbol of railway hope”-, to the El Labradorcico de Águilas Association and to the Bastetan activist Almudena Muñoz, who currently embodies the figure of the Lady of Baza, and with the distribution among the attendees of a sweet gift in chocolate locomotive shape “to start 2023 in the best possible way”.
This traditional protest ceremony on December 31 was held, as every year, at noon, in the old Baza train station. On this occasion, under the motto ‘For an informative study that brings us back the train’.