The railway manager Adif has extended the restoration of service in several sections of the Mediterranean Corridor in the provinces of Tarragona and Castellón to 17 hours due to “the significant damage to the railway line”.
According to a statement from Adif, the detection of new damage to the track platform and the great “complexity in the mobilization of technical, material and human resources” continue to make it difficult to completely restore the service. Adif “keeps a large number of resources and workers deployed” to repair the damage.
Between Ulldecona and L’Aldea (Tarragona) “intensive work is being done” on both roads despite the difficult existing conditions, to replace the infrastructure damaged by flooding on the roads and dragging of the ballast layer, mainly. In this section, three trains of ballast hoppers have already been mobilized “to continue repair operations, in addition to profilers and tamping machines.” After the heavy rains that occurred on Monday evening, new damage has been detected on this route, among others, a section of about 150 meters where the ballast layer has been completely washed away.
Rodalies reports that line R16 between the Tortosa and Ulldecona-Alcanar-La Sénia stations continues to be interrupted due to the damage caused by the storm. For its part, Renfe has announced that it has activated changes and cancellations at no cost for commercial service trains in the Mediterranean Corridor.
The flooding of several sections has led to the need to mobilize another work train with hoppers that had to travel to Moncofa (Castellón) to load the ballast. Some tasks are “complex due to the characteristics of the machinery” and because its movement “must be made compatible with the circulation of passenger trains in those sections where it is possible to maintain the railway service,” according to the Adif note.
Adif maintains a large number of technical and human teams deployed to permanently monitor the status of railway infrastructure and facilities. It has already mobilized a hundred technicians and operators from all subsystems (track, catenary and signaling) to repair the damage in the shortest possible time and as long as the evolution of the meteorological situation allows it.
