Starting next academic year, Catalonia will have the first comprehensive public railway training center in Catalonia. It is a project that we want to accompany the comprehensive transfer of Rodalies. It will be located in the facilities of the FX Lluch i Rafecas institute in Vilanova i la Geltrú, which already trains students in railway maintenance.
The capital of Garraf was already the only Catalan city where professional and university training is given in this subject. The new Catalunya Railway Training Center will be the first of its kind in Spain and the training will be progressively expanded to cover all railway professional profiles. They will respond to the occupation demands of the State Railway Safety Agency, as vehicle driving personnel (engine drivers) and circulation, infrastructure, train operations personnel or those responsible for controlling the maintenance of railway rolling stock.
At the same time, this training center will provide training in railway electromechanics, train maintenance and for on-board service assistants. Until now, the different actors in the Catalan railway system train their own teams, but the objective of the Generalitat is to concentrate training in the dual public and specialized center of Vilanova, as well as to expand skills. It is expected to reach a thousand students in various grades and a teaching staff of up to 80 expert teachers.
The center that will serve to prepare the transfer of Rodalies was presented today Friday at the Vilanova Railway Museum. It is part of the planning of the new map of professional training centers promoted by the Generalitat that will see the light of day in 2024 with centers such as the Food Institute in Barcelona (Mercabarna), the Institute of Logistics in Barcelona (Port of Barcelona) or the Institute of Audiovisual and Performance Techniques of Barcelona.
The Minister of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà, has assured that the transfer of Rodalies “is not only historic, but we also want it to be exemplary, without cracks and without anyone suffering.” And she has advocated for an integrated Catalan railway network with “Swiss punctuality”. For her part, the Minister of Territory, Ester Capella, explained that the mobility of the future involves the preferential use of public transport and that the main infrastructure is the railway network, which must be “extensive, reliable and well connected.” Ella capella wants a Catalan railway system “integral, intermodal, typical of Catalonia and managed from Catalonia” to provide a better service to citizens.
The mayor of Vilanova i la Geltrú, Juan Luis Ruiz, has stated that the new center is the result of collaboration between the Government of the Generalitat and the City Council, and that the city’s educational community “has taken on this project as its own.” Juan Luis Ruiz added that the long railway tradition of Vilanova i la Geltrú has been key to locating the new training center in the city. And he wanted to remember that the arrival of the train to Vilanova crossing the Garraf massif meant a great urban and economic transformation, being key to the installation of the Italian multinational Pirelli, a factory without which the capital of Garraf “would have been something else.” .
The mayor has no doubt that Vilanova is positioned as the “Catalan railway capital” with a ring that has assets such as the Railway Museum and its impressive collection of steam engines, the Renfe repair workshops, the UPC and its technological center, the Neàpolis center or the Víctor Balaguer Library-Museum.
