What Renfe conceives as a direct train is not what comes to mind for any mortal. By direct, the company means a route without transfer and two AVE that it will make available between Murcia and Malaga… but passing through Madrid and ten more stops. Six to seven hours for a route of a thousand kilometers – the one from Murcia to A Coruña, for example – which by car is 400 and four hours. Málaga and Murcia are the sixth and seventh cities in population…
Jealous of the Trans-Siberian, we have created a Trans-Siberian. Or almost From here, the playing field is in the networks while mocking the radial railway system. “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, unless you’re Spanish”, says @candeliano. @Blogsalamank proposes a math problem: “If a train leaves Salamanca in the direction of Cáceres at 8:40 a.m. and another one leaves Murcia in the direction of Malaga at 7:00 a.m., what time will they cross in Madrid?”.
The problem is that there is currently no rail connection between the Region of Murcia and Andalusia. There was, but in 1985 the central government closed and dismantled the Guadix-Baza-Llorca line. @P_Arcas notices it. And there is another issue: the Mediterranean corridor, which remains unfinished. The work has been delayed for more than twenty years. The ministry expects the Murcia-Almeria section of this corridor to be completed in 2026.
There are users, like @LordoLordor, who exonerate the Minister of Transport from Renfe’s thinking. Perhaps they are not without reason, but in any case Óscar Puente, to the rhythm of Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, is more interested in planning the idea of an independence assembly with the theft of copper in Rodalies to influence the elections. I can’t stand it, I know you planned it!, sing the Americans with Puente on bass.
The Generalitat takes action. Catalonia suffers more than half of the copper thefts in all of Spain. The Mossos remember that, curiously, 184 thefts have occurred on Adif routes for every 1,000 kilometers of road, 96% of the total in Catalonia; in the Railways of the Generalitat, 29 per 1,000, 4%.
Puente doesn’t want to get angry. This tells the Senate. “When the transfer takes place and the Generalitat manages it, who will they blame?”, he adds, addressing the senator of Junts Josep Lluís Cleries.
It is not a good start for PSC and JxCat to ally in the Generalitat. It’s unlikely, but not impossible. Puigdemont has little left to be able to travel the width of the Iberian road and will arrive in Barcelona if he does not opt for a Rodalies, but all the agreements between partners would have a safe stop: Madrid.