The time it takes to get on and off the wagons when the trains are full of passengers at rush hour extends the journey time of the commuter trains more than expected. Speeding up this operation when the trains arrive at the most frequented stations is one of the main challenges posed by Renfe officials to the designers of the new 201 trains ordered from Alstom.
The solution is to put more doors on the trains. In total, each unit will have 12 doors, two in each carriage, with three entry and exit points more than the veteran cars of the 446 series that will be retired in the renovation plan that the public operator plans to carry out in next years
The doors will be different depending on the place of the train, which will have a total capacity of a little more than 900 passengers, which could reach 1,800 if they travel in double composition. In the center of each of the trains will be two double-storey carriages with more capacity, but in these there will still be a step to get on and off. Instead, the two carriages at each end will be single-storey and the doors will be at ground level, to speed up the flow of passengers, as well as facilitate access for people with reduced mobility and those on bikes or scooters (when the veto is lifted in Catalonia).
“We will gain time, efficiency, and this will allow us to increase frequencies”, assured the president of Renfe, Raül Blanco, after visiting the Alstom plant in Santa Perpètua with the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, who defined the order underway as “a historic contract that overturns the years without investment of the previous government”.
The manufacturing process of the first new models of Cercanías and Rodalies has already passed from the sketches to the industrial plant but is still in a very initial phase. If the forecasts are fulfilled, next year the first units will already be manufactured and, after the corresponding tests on the railway network, the new trains will be put into circulation in 2025. From then on, four trains will leave every month of the Santa Perpètua plant to gradually incorporate.
