The t algo train yesterday was no longer on the Sitges track where it derailed on Tuesday morning, but the effects were much greater because it was a weekday. Despite being the 16th of August and there being far fewer trips than usual, these days the Garraf line and the regional trains are full of tourists and hikers moving up and down to spend the day, as well as workers , since there are also in the summer. They all found themselves in long queues yesterday to take the replacement buses that made the journey by road between Vilanova i la Geltrú and Castelldefels until the trains could run relatively normally again.
At the Vilanova station, tense situations were experienced during the morning rush hour due to the poor management of the transport of passengers on the buses that Renfe stepped on to absorb the large number of travelers arriving to the capital del Garraf from the south, both with the R2 south line or with the regional lines from Tarragona and the Terres de l’Ebre. The collapse already took place late on Tuesday afternoon, when hundreds of those affected were trying to return from the southern beaches to Barcelona after a few days of vacation. However, the number of vehicles on the substitute service was not increased and hundreds of people spent their time zigzagging in queues in front of the station until they reached the bus that brought them to their destination.
Traffic was partially restored shortly after 10am, when there were still long queues to catch buses near the station. From that moment, trains began to pass on a track between Garraf and Vilanova i la Geltrú. The buses disappeared immediately, but the timetables were still not fully regulated, and as if that wasn’t enough, there was an incident between Gavà and El Prat de Llobregat that kept traffic interrupted for half an hour. The fatal combination caused commuter and regional train passengers to spend a good amount of time inside the trains stopped at the stations without the road alternative.
It was finally at four o’clock in the afternoon that traffic was fully restored on both roads and the usual frequencies and timetables were restored. A hundred technicians from Renfe and the railway infrastructure administrator (Adif) have been involved in the work, which publicly insists on saying that the causes are unknown despite the fact that the same officials told the local Sitges police that the derailment had taken place due to a break in the track.
The damage caused by the incident has been significant and the infrastructure has been fixed so that trains can run again, but it is still not fully recovered. The track where the train went off the rails maintains a temporary speed limit in a stretch of nearly one kilometer. On the road in the opposite direction, the impact is limited to 400 metres. This fact means a certain increase in the travel time for all the trains that pass through it for safety reasons, freight trains included, which these days circulate on the Garraf line due to the cutting of the Vilafranca line to advance in the works on the Mediterranean corridor in Castellbisbal.
The Minister of Territory, Ester Capella, took the opportunity yesterday to claim for the umpteenth time the transfer of Rodalies to the Generalitat, and regretted that “the incidences of Rodalies are a constant due to the lack of historical investment and the manifest will not invest what has been committed”. However, he made no reference to the derailment of a machine at the Generalitat Railways (FGC) works in Sarrià, which ended with a worker in hospital on Friday. The councilor also did not say anything about the queues that exist these days in Plaça Gall·la Placídia due to the cut for works on the Vallès line of the FGC, where the service planned to cope with demand has also been short.
