VENEZUELA’s transport minister, Ramón Celestino Velásquez Araguayán, says that freight services on the 307km Barquisimeto/Acarigua - Puerto Cabello line will be reactivated “soon,” though no firm timetable has been set.
The reopened line would connect the Batalla de Araure intermodal terminal and dry port north of Acarigua, as well as the dry port in Barquisimeto in Lara state, with the country’s largest Caribbean port at Puerto Cabello. The line has been inactive for several years and will require significant remedial works. Engineers quoted in Venezuelan media have stressed that “technical issues must be corrected before railway operations officially begin.”
In August, Juan Carlos Romero, president of Lara state’s export promotion agency Emcoex, said the reopening “will provide a major opportunity for all sectors that have been waiting for the chance to move goods, complete customs processes, and access export markets through the national railway system.”
If completed, the project would mark Venezuela’s first reactivated freight line in several years and complement the country’s only currently operational railway: the Caracas - Valles del Tuy passenger line south of the capital.
Several infrastructure projects have been left unfinished in the last two decades, including new passenger lines. These include the half-built lines that would connect the central-region cities of Valencia, Maracay, and Caracas, which have a combined population of 11.8 million.
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