The alternative measures agreed last night to alleviate the damage to the Rodalies de Catalunya lines, which this Monday caught many users by surprise, are collapsing some points of the Barcelona metro network, such as the Badalona station or the buses and buses that connect Barcelona with the metropolitan area.
On some lines, such as the R1, where train circulation stops in Badalona, ??travelers are diverted to the metro, which at rush hour was crowding the station in this town due to the flow of users from the Maresme region.
On this line, Renfe hopes to be able to restore the service tomorrow, Tuesday, while the rest of the lines affected by the serious incident may take about two months to recover normality.
The director of Renfe’s Rodalies service, Antonio Carmona, has advanced this calendar in statements to TV3 this Monday, a critical day for mobility in Catalonia due to the damage caused to this railway network as a result of a new episode of copper theft. .
Adif technicians are working to recover normality as soon as possible, something that will not be possible, as Carmona has admitted, until tomorrow, in the best of scenarios, for the R1, which goes from Molins de Rei to Barcelona.
“For the rest of the lines it could take two months,” he admitted, going on to point out that “we are providing the best possible service given the situation.”
Other metro stations that have increased the presence of Rodalies users are L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and Fabra i Puig, where they can change to get to the city center or leave the Catalan capital.
Travelers looking for alternatives by road, such as buses between Barcelona and Mataró Bus Express, also see how the vehicles are overcrowded and no longer stop at some stops.
Renfe has reinforced the information and customer service staff at the stations to communicate the reorganization of the service during this “extraordinary operation.”
The Renfe stations of Plaza Catalunya and Arc de Triomf, in Barcelona, ??remain for now without local rail service.
Renfe’s plan foresees that traffic on the R4 Nord line will be 33% of the service between Manresa and Fabra and Puig during rush hour and 50% the rest of the day. In Fabra and Puig, travelers go to the metro, Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC) or the R2 line of Rodalies.
On the R4 Sud, trains run to L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, with four trains in each direction, and connect with the metro, while the R2 Nord, R2 Sud, R8, R11 and Regionals Sud lines are not affected.
On the R3, there is a train service between Puigcerdà and Montcada Ripollet, with two trains per hour in each direction. From Montcada and Ripollet an alternative road service is established to Sagrera Meridiana, where travelers can continue by metro.
Finally, on the R7, there is circulation to Cerdanyola, with alternative bus service from that point.
Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) has reinforced the metro service to facilitate mobility in the face of incidents in the local service.
In a statement, TMB has specified that up to 167 trains will run during rush hour this morning, the maximum possible, and that the peak hour service slot has been brought forward to six in the morning.
This reinforcement of the service means that there are two more trains than usual in the morning rush hour, and up to 15 more during the rest of the day, so in the afternoon rush hour there will be up to 152 trains in service and up to 140 in the off-peak hours of the morning and afternoon shifts.
Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC), for its part, has reinforced the service on the metropolitan lines (Barcelona-Valès and Llobregat-Anoia) from this Monday, given the effects in the suburbs and the increase in demand in the stations Sabadell, Terrassa and Mortorell.
Some 400,000 travelers use Renfe’s Rodalies network daily, although not all of them will see their mobility affected, as clarified by Carmona, who has denounced “acts of vandalism” and has once again demanded that the Mossos d’Esquadra “put an end to the scourge of copper theft.”
“Adif and Renfe already provide complementary security, but responsibility for citizen security issues lies with the Mossos,” he said.
