The new Gare do Oriente

Infraestruturas de Portugal plans to widen the Gare do Oriente in Lisbon for high-speed rail, from 8 tracks to 11, and to renovate the existing station. In February 2024 it awarded the design to Santiago Calatrava’s office, which designed the station for Expo 98.

The station

The 1998 roof stands on rows of steel columns that branch out at the top to carry the glass. The expansion adds two rows of these columns on the west side, on two new platforms 420 m long with three new tracks. A twin arch spans 220 m over the new rows, and the middle columns of each row hang from it on cables.

Below the street, the model shows the Metro station of the Red Line on floors −3 and −4, its tunnels, and the gallery on floor −2 that leads to the bus bays. To the east, the 1998 footbridges cross Avenida Dom João II to the Vasco da Gama centre.

How the model is built

The model of the expansion follows the 2025 drawing set in the environmental impact study, which is in public consultation from 15 October to 25 November 2026. Measurements on its plans, sections and elevations, at scales from 1:250 to 1:1000, give the model’s dimensions to within about half a metre.

The existing station, the streets and the buildings around them come from OpenStreetMap. The tracks beyond the station follow the track drawings of the same study, with every turnout and the level of the rails. The ground and the height of each building come from the LiDAR survey that the Direção-Geral do Território flew in 2024. South of the station, a new retaining wall from the track drawings holds the fill under the new tracks. Where the works cut into the ground, the model lowers the terrain and leaves out the buildings and trees in the way. The model leaves out buildings that cross the edge of its square, among them the MEO Arena.

Below the street, the model follows the station guide for blind and low-vision passengers by TML and APD, the plan of floor −4 and OpenStreetMap.

The model shows the light of the sun over Lisbon at 17:45 on 15 October.

Main dimensions

Levels are in metres, as the drawings give them. The street is at +9.20 and the platforms at +20.25. Sheet numbers refer to the 2025 drawing set.

Guesses

No source gives these parts, so the model estimates them:

• the level of the fill behind the new retaining wall
• the slope of the track bed between the new retaining wall and the viaduct south of the station
• the columns under the new deck strip and the viaducts
• the height of the wall north of the station and of the edges of the cut
• the layers of earth and the depth of the river
• the escalator runs below ground
• the height of the masts that hold the footbridges
• the width of the arch ribs below the roof
• the size of each tree
• the lights at night
• the colours and surfaces of the steel, the glass and the concrete

Credits

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, under the Open Database License. LiDAR data © Direção-Geral do Território, under CC BY 4.0. The drawings and renders of the expansion belong to their authors, and the drawing sheets are © 2025 Santiago Calatrava LLC.

Sources

• Quadruplicação da Linha de Cintura e Modernização da Linha do Norte, the public consultation of the environmental impact study, with the 2025 drawing set and the track drawings
• OpenStreetMap, for the existing station, the streets and the buildings
• Dados LiDAR de Portugal Continental, the 2024 LiDAR survey of the Direção-Geral do Território, for the ground and the height of each building
• Guia de apoio à compreensão da Gare do Oriente por Pessoas cegas e com baixa visão, the station guide for blind and low-vision passengers by TML and APD, November 2025