Yesterday, Renfe resumed regular service on the Rodalies lines affected by the incident that caused damage to the Gavà signal board on May 1, after Adif repaired the incident. In this way, regular services are restored on the affected lines: R2 South, regional R13, R14, R15, R16 and R17, as well as the R2 North and R11 lines, so that travelers wishing to access Barcelona from Gavà have four R2 South trains and two regional trains per hour and direction, while on working days there will be seven Commuter trains per direction during peak hours and four during peak hours, as well as two regional trains per hour and direction .
Normalization after the Gavà incident on May 1st comes amid mistrust among users, who in many cases wonder what the next major service failure will be. This state of pessimism is contributed to by events such as those on Friday afternoon and night, when several incidents were recorded, with disruptions to traffic on the R17 and RT2, between Tarragona and Torredembarra, and the R8, between Rubà and Granollers
The situation that caused a breakdown in a catenary on a convoy going from Salou to Arboç was particularly annoying for travelers. About sixty people were trapped in the train for more than three hours. When they were finally able to return to the station of origin, they still had to wait until shortly before two in the morning for another train to take them to their destination.
Meanwhile, the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce has put the number of trips affected between May 2 and 19 due to the Gavà breakdown at 1,007,044. The entity points out that the incident has meant “the cumulative loss of 471,343 hours for users”, which is equivalent to nearly 60,000 working days. The chamber of commerce calls for “collective and transparent work between Adif, Renfe and the Generalitat, as owner of the service, to manage the system with maximum coordination and rigor, so as to minimize the impact on users”.
Renfe sources consulted by Europa Press have described the report as “biased” and out of context and have recalled that Rodalies de Catalunya has made between 40 and 45 million journeys since the beginning of 2023.
