The purpose of the work carried out by Ineco for Renfe Viajeros at the San José de Valderas station, one of the three stations in the city of Alcorcón (Madrid), was to improve accessibility for passengers. The station complex consists of two buildings, one for each traffic direction, as well as two platforms and two tracks. These were connected by an underpass consisting of conventional fixed stairs, with no access for disabled passengers. It was therefore necessary to remove the stairs to make the underpass accessible, which involved the renovation and enlargement of the passageway under the tracks. In addition, two lifts were installed and an access ramp was built in three sections.
The San José de Valderas station on the C-5 Line of Cercanías Madrid –located in the neighbourhood of the same name in Alcorcón and to the north of the city centre– is included in the Cercanías Stations Plan approved by Renfe in 2014. This plan consists of improving the accessibility of 109 stations within the Cercanías commuter rail network, in Asturias, Bilbao, Cádiz, Cataluña, Madrid, Málaga, Murcia, San Sebastián, Santander, Seville, Valencia and Zaragoza.
With a length of 45.1 kilometres, the C-5 line handles the largest number of journeys (65.6 million) per year, offers 331,100 seats on a daily basis (according to 2017 data) and runs through the municipalities of Humanes de Madrid, Fuenlabrada, Leganés, Madrid (Atocha), Alcorcón and Móstoles. In total, the Community of Madrid’s Cercanías services transport more passengers than any other part of the Spanish rail network, exceeding 192 million users a year.
A comprehensive refurbishment
Access to the San José de Valderas station is through two buildings, depending on the street from which passengers enter. From Avenida de Lisboa, passengers enter the building’s concourse , which is on the same level as the train platform, by climbing stairs with an elevation difference of 1.60 metres. From Calle de Sahagún, the passenger building is entered under canopies that also connect it to the nearby shopping centre.
The passenger building on Calle Lisboa needed complete refurbishment and enlargement to enable the construction of new stairs and a lift to the underpass. The works carried out also included a new customer service area and the installation of ticket machines.
The refurbishment and enlargement of the building carried out by Ineco also involved rearrangement of the concourse, adapting the exterior access of the passenger building, relocating the turnstiles in the passenger building concourse on Calle de Sahagún and connecting the concourses of both existing buildings with the platforms and underpass, creating an accessible route that connects all of the levels of the station.
The works on the Calle Lisboa building involved demolishing the façade, extending the concourse area to the outdoor car park and building a new façade with access ramps to the outside, providing the station with a new, modern look for the city, inviting passengers to use rail transport.
With nearly 170,000 inhabitants, the city of Alcorcón and the more than 10,000 residents who use the station, now have more comfortable and modern facilities that have been adapted for people with disabilities. Other works included improvement of the exterior finishes of the platforms and complete replacement of lighting. A new route was also studied to provide access to the station’s car park, providing it with parking spaces suitable for the disabled.
Lastly, all of the actions in the construction phase were carried out without affecting passenger traffic.
passenger traffic in the Community of Madrid in 2017
