Rodalies trains will not run throughout Sunday. The railway crisis in Catalonia is still far from being solved and the Generalitat has announced that it will keep the service suppressed for another day, without making it clear whether it will be reactivated in whole or in part on Monday, when some 400,000 passengers move. “We are working against the clock,” the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque, has limited himself to stating on that horizon.
The work to review the infrastructure, especially the 21 most critical points due to risk of landslides, will continue all night. They will also take the opportunity to move the convoys to the departure points. During Sunday, Paneque insisted that they will reinforce the bus service as alternative transportation.
The total absence of trains will therefore add another day in Catalonia. First it was on Wednesday, after the fatal accident in Gelida, which was followed on Thursday when the train drivers alleged that safety conditions were not met. On Friday, after an agreement between the parties, the service resumed, but a rockfall on R1 shook the Generalitat’s forecasts.
This Saturday, the day started with trains in operation but with several sections cut, those with the highest risk of landslides. However, the Generalitat has announced that it was completely suppressing them, alleging that the rain and snow storm prevents the service from being provided safely.
In his afternoon appearance, Paneque elaborated on the weather conditions. “We find ourselves with a storm that adds to the sunrise of the previous days, with harsh consequences and that has caused landslides in different areas of the road and railway network,” he stated. He has even described it as a “climate crisis”, despite the fact that the rainy episode experienced is not the most virulent in recent years.
Paneque has also pointed this time to the absence of investments in the network for years. “It is an infrastructure that has accumulated years of investments, in which greater maintenance should have been done,” he acknowledged. “We have some Rodalies overwhelmed by the lack of investment,” he insisted.
As a novelty, the councilor has confirmed that the train service will be free until normality is restored. “It will remain in place until the system operates reliably and sustainably,” he declared.
This Saturday, a new landslide has also affected a track on the R4 of Rodalies, in the section between the stations of Cerdanyola del Vallès and Sabadell, just when the service was suspended. According to Adif sources, the trains were no longer running on the track, so none of them were affected by the landslide.
The Rodalies user platforms have once again shown their discomfort about the situation and have asked the Generalitat for “transparency” to find out the problematic points of the network. Dignitat a les Viess has demanded “a “rapid and safe recovery” of the service after meeting with the minister, and has regretted “lack of coordination” between the different actors involved in the railway crisis.
Source: www.eldiario.es
