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Chaos on Rodalies: an Adif fault brings trains to a standstill at rush hour
An incident at Adif's control centre brings Rodalies to a halt. Thousands of passengers are left stranded. The cause remains unclear. Service is slowly recovering. The authorities are meeting as a matter of urgency.
An incident at Adif's control centre brings Rodalies to a halt. Thousands of passengers are stranded. The cause remains unclear. Service is recovering slowly. Authorities are holding an emergency meeting.
Rodalies services in Catalonia suffered another interruption early this Monday morning. A fault at Adif's control centre forced all trains to stop at around 06:44, just as the return-to-normal operation was beginning after last week's problems.
The commuter rail network has reported on its official channels that services are being restored progressively. However, the incident has already occurred twice on the same morning, frustrating plans to return to normal on the R2 line and partially on the R1 and R4 lines.
Antonio Carmona, Renfe's spokesperson in Catalunya, said that the exact causes of the fault, which remain under investigation, are still unknown. For his part, Salvador Almenar, Adif's communications director, explained on Catalunya Ràdio that the problem originated in the communications system, which made it necessary to stop all trains for safety reasons.
Almenar stressed that this fault is unrelated to the incidents of the previous week, which were attributed to the storm and damage to Rodalies infrastructure.
Given the seriousness of the situation, the Departament de Territori convened an emergency meeting at its headquarters. Those taking part included Albert Dalmau, the conseller de la Presidència; Sílvia Paneque, the consellera de Territori; and José Antonio Santano, the secretario d'Estat de Transports.
Today's roadmap envisaged an almost complete recovery of services: the R2 was to operate in full, while the R1 and R4 would operate partially. On the R1, the Blanes-Maçanet-Massanes section remains interrupted, and on the R4 trains run only between Terrassa and Martorell Central, and between Sant Sadurní and Sant Vicenç de Calders. Attention is now focused on resolving the technical problems in order to return to normal.