the Department of Territory of the Generalitat launched a post in X after three in the morning yesterday – which would later disappear – in which it warned that the short-distance train service would not start on Saturday. “After eight hours of meeting,” the text said, “and Adif have informed us of the inability to operate the ordinary Rodalies and freight train service throughout the country’s railway network.” The message went unnoticed by the operator and just a few hours later, the short-distance trains started running, although .
Renfe argued that in the period of time between the message from the Generalitat and the start of operations, it had been possible to advance the work to launch the service. But that idea, without any communication from the Generalitat to restore service and the Department of Territory not being able to correct its previous message, did not convince the Goven. , and the head of Territory, Sílvia Paneque, met with the Ministry of Transport, Renfe and Adif in the crisis committee that weathers the railway storm. Last night’s tweet ceased to be a mere informative act towards users and became a government resolution. The Generalitat, as owner of the service, forced Renfe through a decree to paralyze the Rodalies service on all lines, after verifying that the trains could not guarantee “safe mobility”: “Safety is and will be the primary issue in our actions,” Dalmau maintained. Then came another tweet to announce the suspension of Rodalies service.
⚠ Local and regional service is suspended until fully operational.
👉 Renfe will maintain free of charge when the service resumes until normality is restored.
✅ From the Government, we want to guarantee the safety and mobility of citizens.— Government of Catalonia (@govern)
The trust built between the Generalitat and the Ministry of Transport and its public companies Renfe and Adif seemed to be faltering in , through a shared company. Also for the good relations that Pedro Sánchez and Salvador Illa maintain and that have facilitated understanding between both governments in capital and critical areas such as financing, debt or the El Prat airport.
With the Secretary of State for Transport – he participated by videoconference in the morning meeting and in person in the afternoon – an agreement was reached so that the two large public companies of the ministry could coordinate their public communications through it, so that the Generalitat would avoid problems such as the start-up of the trains the previous morning. And, incidentally, Dalmau revealed to journalists one of the problems that experts always focus on to describe one of the train operating problems that Catalonia suffers from: the lack of collaboration between Renfe, responsible for the convoys, and Adif, in charge of the battered infrastructure. The counselor set himself the challenge of “guaranteeing that Renfe and Adif fulfill their duty to work side by side to find solutions.”
