It’s 7:30 a.m. Calafell station platform, Tarragona. “Departure in 5 minutes”, the information panels optimistically indicate. It seems that the route will go normally despite the fact that the new fault in Rodalies suggests the worst. But, indeed, it was optimism: time goes by and more and more people crowd. The first desperate faces can already be seen on the station benches. The morning will be long.
It is not for less. Since last Monday, due to a fire in the Gavà signal box, only two trains have been running per direction and hour on the Rodalies line R2. This anomaly has raised concern among thousands of users who travel every day on trains and regional services, who say that “it is a very outrageous situation.”
40 minutes have passed and the only information from Renfe arrives at the stop through the announcement over the loudspeakers. They remember the failure and the low frequency of the trains due to the resignation of the passengers. Only the panel contradicts the speakers: it has frozen in its optimistic 5 minutes. To those who do not stop looking at the clock, it seems that time barely passes and many end up giving up. “This is a shame,” says a passenger angrily. Núria is a regular user of the R2 Sud line (Sant Vicenç de Calders – Barcelona Estació de França). “I take the train to go to work in Castelldefels every day and something always happens, but this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” she later comments —and visibly nervous— shortly before definitively throwing in the towel and deciding to take the car.
During the journey, the complaints are widespread: not only the delays are lamented, but also, and especially, the lack of information and the absolute lack of control around the schedules. In this sense, Miguel says: “We feel abandoned”, “it is outrageous because there is no one to give you explanations as to when the next train is scheduled”.
Another of the many outraged on Thursday morning is Lidia, who has acknowledged being “loaded with nerves” for arriving three days in a row “two or three hours late for work.” The incident has caused the train to have to stop at each of the stations between 10 or 15 minutes, which further despairs Lidia and the rest of the passengers, since “everything is delayed, you wait almost an hour and On top of that, you get on the train in very bad condition because it’s going to burst”, forcing many to stay and wait for the next train. Lidia is right: a pin does not fit in the wagon.
The train finally arrives at Vilanova i La Geltrú and, before the doors open, you can already feel the eagerness of the passengers, who reposition themselves in the best way they can to make way for those who get off and thus be able to get a little more mobility. When the doors open, the battle for space begins: not all the users have yet managed to get off and the most desperate are already entering to get a small space on the train.
And at each stop history repeats itself. When the train arrives, the most restless take the opportunity to get out of the car and get some fresh air. Others decide to squeeze the minutes off to go out for a smoke or make an important call. And when the doors close, they all go back up, squeezing each other to get inside. There are only a few significant absentees: the Renfe staff. At none of the stops, no one reports anything. The passengers recharge the batteries of patience.
And at the moment when it seems to say enough is enough, the convoy arrives at Sants, where the vast majority finally get off to go to the station exit and get to their jobs, universities or whatever their destination is as quickly as possible. After three long hours of waiting on the platform and a heavy journey —in normal conditions, the journey takes just over an hour—, the stress is fading.
The fire last Monday, which affected the infrastructure of the signaling system, caused hundreds of people to remain locked up for between two and three hours in several trains on the R2 Sud line and in some regional trains that connect Tarragona and Terres de l’ Ebre with Barcelona.
According to forecasts, the normality of this service can take up to a month. While the technicians try to determine the causes of the fire, the Secretary General for Infrastructure of the Ministry of Transport, Xavier Flores, has apologized to the affected users and has justified that it is being “one of the worst incidents that can be have: leaves you blindsided at train control and security”.
Although there are still irregularities in the services, Rodalies continues to work on the incidence, increasing the frequency to three trains per hour and complementary reinforcements with buses.
It seems that small improvements can be seen in the operation of the line since this Friday, the train with departure at 7:35 from Calafell has left on time. “It doesn’t seem like a lie,” R2 users comment in surprise.
