The Spanish backwardness in the participation of rail in globalized intermodal freight traffic: from around 1960 to the present day". (original) (raw)

Historically, the Spanish railway succumbed to the strong competition of the road, since, clearly pointing out immediately before the Spanish Civil War, the lorry overtook it since the 50s of the 20thcentury, with the explosive acceleration of the motorization of the population and the transport of goods by road. This growing disadvantage of the Spanish railway compared to road transport became more acute when the generalization of freight containers in international maritime traffic made the intermodal organization of transport and its logistics necessary, both worldwide and in the European context, since the last quarter of the last century. The relative participation of Spanish railways in this intermodal freight transport system is increasingly poor in comparison with the participation of the national railway systems of many European countries. After comparing the historic available statistics, the paper proposes an interpretation of the causes of this deep divergence and its consequences.