“In less than an hour from our departure, we stand up and announced that they would cut the light. Totally in the dark, without being able to use baths. So we have been until 6.00 in the morning,” says Francisco Letán, a traveler who left Madrid on the high -speed rail line (AVE) at 20.45 on Sunday to Seville destination. The train left 40 minutes late. The machine stopped once Toledo has passed due to two incidents recorded this Sunday: that joins the Madrid capital with the Andalusian around 17.44 on Sunday; and a “hook” of an Iroo train along the same line that dragged the catenary and aggravated the problem. In total, due to the two incidents between Sunday and this Monday. “I don’t understand it, it makes no sense to let the train go out when we were at risk of getting stuck,” says Francisco, “we have been very cold because they opened the doors and took the jackets to shelter the children.”
The same wondered this Monday morning Almudena Álvarez, a traveler who made the journey on the city of Guadalquivir on Sunday. The journey that lasts for two hours with 40 minutes, left Seville at 19.50 and became an odyssey of more than nine hours aboard a train in which water and food were exhausted. And in which the lights never went out to sleep. “First we were stopped without knowing what was happening. Then they told us that they had stolen some cables and that the train would slowly advance as it could. Thus, all night,” he says.
Both Santa Justa and Atocha station have dawned on the first day of the week covered by thousands of passengers whose trains suffered delays due to incidents. While Bethlehem, Marina, Nerea and Eva, four friends who travel together from Madrid by leaving at 10.00, retain the calm that makes you know on vacation, in Seville, Beatriz Montero tries to take the nearest train to reach the Archaeological Museum of Madrid, where you have to perform at 15.30 the second examination of an opposition to a museum conservative. “It seems that I do not arrive on time. I am with a horse anxiety,” says Beatriz, while valued if he compensated to travel in a shared car for six hours. “If I do not present myself, I have automatic suspense. Today we examine five people and I will introduce the papers of the trip to the court, to see if they have mercy. I have two more exams,” he says.
“I’m going for work,” Fernando says in Madrid. His train planned to leave from Atocha to Seville at 9.30. “I just hope that when I have to return in the afternoon the breakdown has already been solved,” he says while waiting on the other side of the red and white ribbon that, in theory, divides travelers who have their closest train to leave those who have to wait for something else. Everyone seeks to be close to the screens, waiting for the platform to go to. At ten in the morning, the trains of Cádiz of 7.00 or Granada were still pointed out at 7.30. Both with a red warning: “delayed.”
“Seville train of nine in the morning, please pass, please!” Says an Adif worker on the speaker around 10.00. There are applause and whistles among travelers. With an hour of delay, the first trains began to leave with that destination. Elena Fernández finally access the Atocha station, but she takes care of Victoria. “My friend had a train at 7.00 and is still on the platform waiting. They are taking us inside, but we don’t know if we can leave,” she explains ,. “I think we will join and go by car,” says the young woman, who does not want to miss the beginning of the fair and will “anything” to leave Madrid.
Many of the travelers fear losing the train and with it, precisely, the celebrations of the April Fair, which start this Monday with the Pescaíto Night. Among the crowd is a gypsy suit and flowers lit in the hair. Liliana Esquivel is carefully folded in a bag a pink and black satin suit with flyers that betrays her destination. He travels with her husband and in her plans she is still going to dinner tonight through the streets of Seville. “Tomorrow he and friends will go to the bulls, but I am not because I am an animalist,” he says pointing to her husband.
By noon, trains began to leave at their time from Seville. Renfe announced that the Granada-Sevilla Route, with Avant, scheduled for 12.17 in principle, would leave timely from Santa Justa. “I trust to get to the University in time, but seen how the thing is, I do not know,” says student Elena Purple at the time her train appears with the indicated platform. Two hours later, Renfe reported that from the line between Andalusia and Madrid on the morning of Monday, 20 trains had already left: 15 in the direction of Madrid and another five to Andalusia.
In Atocha, the workers and the police have managed to maintain a certain order inside the station, but since the trains began to circulate again, the lobby were filled with passengers that the same thing were traveling at 10.00 than three hours later. Several languages are heard and several accents commenting on the situation, all pending to be called. “This is horrible,” says a passenger in English while seeing how people go down and lower people who join the tails at the entrance.
Marisol, a Venezuelan traveler, has arrived a few minutes ago at the station and does not understand anything that happens. “What have stolen some cables? I had no idea, they haven’t told us anything here,” he says. Their trip to Seville began at 10 in the morning, but they have not yet told them when they could leave again: “I only see many people waiting and no information,” he laments. Renfe estimates that of the 29 trains of the company that have come out between morning and noon, the average delay has been two hours, although some convoys have been delayed more than four. Like private operators Iryo and Ouigo, the situation has been normalized in the afternoon, although that has not avoided new delays.
