'Reasonable normality' in Rodalies trains on Tuesday, within planned reduced service

After more than a week of chaos and disruptions, the Rodalies commuter train service is running with "reasonable normality, within what was planned," according to the spokesperson for Renfe in Catalonia, Antonio Carmona, in statements to the media from Sants station on Tuesday morning.

There is a planned reduced service on Tuesday, with trains and alternative buses scheduled to run.

While the infrastructure repair works continue, Renfe has 10 alternative transport plans available, putting on 146 buses and deploying 700 informers.

Passengers can also now travel with free passes.

Many travelers who arrived at stations early in the morning did so with a backup option, just in case.

Monday morning started with two separate incidents shutting down the service across Catalonia, which only caused more disruption after last week's fatal crash near Gelida. 

The coimmuter crisis led to the dismissals of the operational director of Rodalies and the head of maintenance at Adif on Monday evening.

Despite the "reasonable normality" of services, there are alterations to the scheduled frequencies, causing confusion among passengers.

"20-year lack of investment problem"

Albert Dalmau, Catalonia's Presidency Minister acting as President while Salvador Illa remains sick, has argued that decades' worth of a lack of state funding in the Rodalies network cannot be solved in the short term.

"In a year and a half, we will not solve a 20-year lack of investment problem," he said on Tuesday, speaking to Catalunya Ràdio, adding that he cannot promise "miraculous solutions."

The minister has assured that the government is taking "the bull by the horns" to solve the crisis in the railway service, and that "it will not waver" when making decisions.

Dalmau insisted that "solutions" are now needed, and not to cause "frustration" or resignations. 

Commuters protest

Platforms of train commuters have called for a demonstration on February 7 in Barcelona to denounce the "systematic disinvestment" in railway infrastructure.

The protest will also denounce the "bad governance of the system" by Adif, Renfe, and the respective governments.

"The situation has been unsustainable for years, and an obvious result of this is that Rodalies is the only public transport service in Catalonia that is losing users when the rest are gaining," the associations point out.

The demonstration is scheduled for Saturday, February 7, at 5 pm, starting at Estació de França and ending up at Plaça Sant Jaume.

Railway inspections to finish "this week"

Adif plans to finish all inspections on the railway network "this week" with the aim of unblocking all routes and resolving the current situation.

Adif's construction director, Ángel Contreras, stated as much in a press conference on Tuesday, where he avoided specifying which lines could be put into operation first.

The infrastructure managing company has increased the number of "urgent" actions on the network, rising from 23 to 29. Around 50 teams and 150 technicians are deployed on these tasks.

Technicians are cutting down trees near tracks in Caldes de Malavella, at the point where there was a risk of a landslide, causing the rail service to be suspended in that section.

Last week's storms are believed to have uprooted several trees, which could fall onto the train tracks.

Adif president Pedro Marco de la Peña explained that Monday's system outage was due to an "error" by the software company, denied "sabotage," and said they have initiated legal proceedings to claim responsibility.