• Transport 'Fevemocho', the fiasco of trains and tunnels in Asturias: "We have been providing a third-world service for many years"

Cercanías and its problems are once again a topical issue in Catalonia and a reason for scuffle between parties. So much so that even the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, yesterday gave the "welcome to the real policy" to the spokesman of Esquerra in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, when he reproached him for the operation of the short-distance train network in the region.

The incidents of this public service are also recurrent in Madrid and the same happens in the railway line that connects the capital with Extremadura. To all this is added the controversy over the trains committed to Cantabria and Asturias that did not fit in the tunnels, which may end up leading to the disapproval of the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez.

The Catalan Government has reactivated the demand for the total transfer of the competences of Cercanías. The Generalitat currently controls the management of the service, but the infrastructure remains in the hands of Adif and Renfe remains as operator, although the Government could choose another company. Issues that the procés left cornered during the past decade come to the fore today. And what more than 15 years ago was called "railway chaos" recovers its importance these days.

The works of the AVE in Barcelona became in 2007 one of the main headaches for the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. In addition to the appearance of cracks in buildings or subsidence in the construction itself, several lines of the commuter trains were paralyzed for a month and a half and left 150,000 users without service per day.

Rodalies passengers waiting for their train in Barcelona.ARABA PRESS

That episode resulted in hundreds of thousands of people touring the center of Barcelona under the slogan: "We are a nation and we say enough. We have the right to decide on our infrastructure." The "right to decide" had just been born as a prelude to the sovereignty process that Artur Mas would promote in 2012.

In Madrid, beyond serious cases such as the one that on February 16 kept travelers an hour and a half in the dark in a wagon, the problems of the Cercanías have become a constant. In the last nine days, since Monday, April 17, in four of them there have been incidents and delays: one in the infrastructure of Nuevos Ministerios station, another that prevented trains from stopping at Valdebebas, delays in the convoys of line C5 due to a failure in the system of changes in Fuenlabrada, a problem in the infrastructure of Villaverde Alto, incidents in Chamartín...

From the Ministry of Transport point to "lack of investment" and "neglect" of the service as the causes for these problems to be repeated continuously in the Madrid train service. The regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has repeatedly pointed in recent months towards La Moncloa accusing the central government of "creating complete chaos in this region". "The Cercanías service is deficient, it harms Metro de Madrid and multiplies traffic jams. I ask, please, that they put a solution to such a serious problem, "said the popular leader last March. And he added that the Community would like "the 2,556 million of the Commuter Budget that is destined to Catalonia".

But the criticism of the service in the capital is not limited only to the regional government or the PP, because the leader of the PSOE, Juan Lobato, who shares acronyms with the Minister of Transport, described as "terrible" and "disaster" the situation of Cercanías and demanded a "solution" that has to come from his own party. "We can not continue with daily uncertainty about whether this fundamental artery for mobility will work or not," warned also on February 16 the spokeswoman for More Madrid, Monica Garcia, whose party at the national level, More Country, is a partner of the Executive of Pedro Sánchez.

In addition, the department directed by Raquel Sánchez had to recognize three months ago that the new trains for Cantabria and Asturias tendered for 258 million euros did not fit in the tunnels due to a "problem" of calculation, an error that will mean that they will be delayed several years. Although at first the Government tried to tackle the controversy by dismissing intermediate positions, the dimension of the scandal finally led to the dismissal of the president of Renfe, Isaías Táboas, and the Secretary of State for Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Isabel Pardo de Vera.

In addition, since the entry into service of the new train in Extremadura in July 2022, multiple problems of delays and technical breakdowns have also accumulated. The last occurred on April 20, when a broken fuel hose caused a fire that forced the eviction of 166 passengers.

To all this is added that yesterday a 20-year-old Valencian municipality of Alfafar died overwhelmed, the third victim in the last eight months in that same municipality where they continue to demand the elimination of the level crossing of the station.

  • Renfe
  • Metro de Madrid
  • BIRD

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Learn more