Spain’s logistics sector has one and a half eyes looking at the Strait of Hormuz and the consequences its closure has on global maritime traffic. But in the case of Catalonia and a good part of Spain, those who manage it also have their attention focused on a point that is infinitely less in the media but which is also causing them real headaches. This is the , a gallery just 900 meters long whose closure for seven weeks due to the poor state of the infrastructure is causing a huge bottleneck in container traffic between the Spanish east, France and the rest of Europe.
The endemic lack of investment in forced the closure of the Rubí gallery (through which R8 Cercanías convoys also circulate) due to water leaks on March 12. before regretting a new accident. Hormuz and Rubí have little to do with each other. In one case, the conflict prevents the passage of oil tankers in that area of the Persian Gulf; and, in the other, underfinancing has led to the collapse of a tunnel that is the only viable alternative for freight trains to enter or leave Europe through the Spanish east. This being the case, the works on the Rubí tunnel, the infrastructure crisis and the increase in freight rail in Spain.
It is not the first time that this 900-meter tunnel located in Rubí (30 kilometers from Barcelona) has closed, converted into a funnel for the transport of goods. , the gallery was closed for 15 days for emergency works. The consequence was an unprecedented accumulation of freight trains in La Llagosta (Barcelona), since they could not circulate in the direction of the Port of Barcelona. It was not the only area affected by the accumulation of wagons. They also crowded the tracks of the Barcelona port and in Perpignan (France), creating a collapse with serious damage to the economic sectors.
It then recorded more than five million losses in the sector. The president of the AEPF, Juan Diego Pedrero, describes the current situation due to the closure as a “real disaster” and announces claims for the damage caused. Pedrero assures that between the January closure and the current one, more than 1,450 freight trains will stop passing.
The head of operations of the Multirail company, Juan Ramírez, which transports goods by train from Europe to Andalusia, explains: “Many of my clients transport goods from Rotterdam (Holland) to Andalusia. Now the trains only arrive at La Llagosta, there we load the goods onto trucks to the Port of Barcelona and again onto a train to Seville. With this operation, the price has increased by more than 20% but, in addition, it takes much longer. Customers “They begin to not believe in the railway.” The director of Multirail assures that transport times have increased greatly: “Before, between Barcelona and Seville there were 22 hours and now we are close to 35. In addition, they propose an alternative, taking a huge loop through Lleida, where dangerous goods cannot pass, and which increases the travel hours so much that it is not profitable,” he concludes.
Five-hour detour not feasible
when it announced the closure of the Rubí tunnel in mid-March, proposed to freight companies a new route that involves a detour to reach the port of the Catalan capital, detouring through Manresa towards Lleida and Sant Vicenç de Calders. It meant that the trains would travel 330 more kilometers and five extra hours. “No one has used this detour. It is not realistic, it is even more economical to transfer the merchandise to trucks in La Llagosta and continue by road,” denounces the president of the AEPF.
The employers’ association of rail transport companies has already denounced the closure of the Rubí tunnel to the European Commissioner for Transport, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, and the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente. “It is a disaster. Customers do not trust the railway and the reputation of the Port of Barcelona has been affected. The losses are in the millions. There are companies stopped, and the worst thing is that it was already known that the Rubí tunnel was bad and the works were not carried out on time. Adif’s responsibility is very clear,” explains Pedrero. “There are clients who have already switched to road transport and who we will not recover,” he laments, without daring to quantify the economic losses that the closure of the tunnel will entail for -in principle- seven weeks.
Ferrmed is a pressure group created in Catalonia to promote a large freight railway axis that would link the south with the north of Europe. Its president, Joan Amorós, warns that if the Rubí railway “plug” is not resolved soon, it will lead to “collapse.” “The big problem in this country is mixing passenger routes with freight routes. There is no room for 170 Rodalies trains and 40 freight trains and that means that many customers have switched to road transport, filling the highways and highways with trucks,” he denounces. The president of Ferrmed also maintains that the closure of the Rubí tunnel will mean “an economic drama” without precedent.
Adif points out that it is working on a critical 60-meter section that has forced the total shutdown of traffic. The company maintains that they are meeting the planned schedule and defends that it has pending works in the rest of the tunnel, but a traffic cut like the current one is not expected.
Impact on the port
The Port of Barcelona has declined to make statements about the impact of the works. Even so, Ignasi Sayol, the president of PIMEC Logistics – who is a member of the Port’s board of directors – maintains that the Rubí outage is so serious that, together with the Rodalies crisis that began after the Gelida accident, it has forced the entity to demand a pact from all political parties to put an end to the situation. “Many companies have switched directly to trucks, but there are others that transport giant coils, chemicals… that have no alternative. The added problem of switching to trucks is that fuel costs have increased and with tourism and the fruit campaign, trucks are increasingly in demand and are more expensive,” he denounces.
Sayol regrets that the railway network is not more permeable and “redundant” and is quickly allowed to opt for other “reasonable” routes when there are works. “It is essential that we agree because the Rubí tunnel affects the entire Spanish economy, especially in the Levant. We are facing a perfect storm,” he concludes.
