Friday, May 8th, marks the end of the free service for Regionals and Rodalies in Catalonia. The Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque, announced this measure during a visit to the Rubí tunnel works alongside the Secretary of State for Infrastructure, José Antonio Santano. The regional government states that the railway network has recovered 90% of its usual users after Storm Harry and the Gelida accident.
Technical advances and recovery timeline
Paneque detailed that the progressive improvement of the service is key to restoring the trust lost since January. Starting next week, with the resumption of circulation on new sections of lines R15, R4, and R3, the system will operate at 96% of its usual capacity. Santano justified the decision to maintain free travel until this Friday, pointing out that temporary speed restrictions have discouraged rail travel on multiple occasions, making the road alternative more viable for travelers. During the appearance, it was confirmed that work is underway to consolidate trenches and slopes to eliminate these restrictions. The technical assessment includes inspections at 690 points, stabilization of 65 slopes and trenches, as well as felling, drainage, and placement of reinforcing meshes. For these actions, a team of over 50 inspection technicians and nearly 400 operators was mobilized. The network will soon have 147 speed restrictions, compared to the 216 recorded after the storm. The cost of the work already exceeds 186 million euros. This announcement comes more than 100 days after the incident in Gelida, considered the trigger for the worst mobility crisis recorded in the autonomous community.
Scheduled outages and user stances
The disruptions will continue to be present on several lines over the next few days. This Friday and Saturday, a specific closure will occur on line R14 between Reus and La Plana Picamoixons. Users of Regionals from the south will have to endure interruptions linked to the works on the Garraf tunnels, which will continue until June. In the Alt Camp region, two months of emergency interventions will begin next Monday on the Valls line, specifically between Picamoixons and Roda de Berà, where work will be carried out on four tunnels, two of them with an imminent risk of collapse. The partial recovery of the R15 will come into effect on the same day, covering only the route between Reus and Móra la Nova with four of the six daily trains planned. The section to Riba roja d"Ebre will see its restoration postponed indefinitely due to the state of the infrastructure. For its part, the R4 between Sant Vicenç de Calders and Manresa will recover its full route the following week, although a shuttle service from Terrassa will persist.
"We have been able to regain users' trust compared to January" - Sílvia Paneque, Minister of Territory
"We are not in favor of free services, but the service being provided is not up to par. We are in favor of returning to the season ticket system when the time comes, but right now we are already paying with our health" - Ana Gómez Llauradó, spokesperson for Dignitat a les Vies
"We defend that it should be paid for, but when it works. If the line between Sant Vicenç de Calders and Barcelona has no disruptions, then let it be paid for and so on, line by line, but from Valls we will get worse and on top of that they now tell us we will have to pay" - Nil Magrinyà, president of Propera Parada Valls
"The trains in the Barcelona metropolitan area, which are like a subway, are now running, but we are still far from the Regionals" - Nil Magrinyà, president of Propera Parada Valls
The staggered resumption of services responds to the prioritization of metropolitan routes while rural and regional sections are reinforced. Citizens will continue to adjust their travel according to the official schedules published by the railway operator, which maintains the warning to check for incidents before each trip due to the possible appearance of new technical limitations.