They are fulfilled 175 years since the inauguration of the first peninsular railway. It happened on October 28, 1848, a Thursday. At nine in the morning, the steam locomotive and three carriages They began a two-hour trip from what is now the France station until Mataró, the flourishing capital of Maresme. The regular service was an hour’s journey, but that day was about showing off, demonstrating the benefits of an unknown, even feared, means of transportation. And virulently rejected by the stagecoach union. If this and no other was the first layout, it is explained by the efforts of the businessman Miquel Biada, the man who brought the invention from Cuba. The coast line has grown, become the R1 by Rodalies, but it maintains some of the problems of its ancestral origins. With new challenges, such as extension of service or resolution of incidents. And new doubts:should move inland due to its proximity to the sea and the effects of the climate change? Ought extend beyond Maçanet-Massanes to cover the Baix Empordà?
Few people know the matter better than Pere Macias, engineer and former many things (former mayor, ‘ex-conseller’, former deputy, former director of the tram connection along Diagonal…) who is now responsible for making the Rodalies 2021-2030 plan come to fruition, from the tendering of projects until the execution of the works. Regarding the possible transfer of the tracks due to the rise in sea level or the increasingly frequent stormsprovides an opinion widely shared by the vast majority of experts on the subject: “The move a train line to a place where there are no people it’s a barbarity; altogether incomprehensible“.
No news from Costas
Another thing is that Maresme has an obvious problem with climate change “in the face of which someone must make decisions.” But, he continues, “It’s not a railway issue“, because, at the end of the day, what the infrastructure does is prevent the sea from reaching the road or even the houses, as happened, for example, in Badalona in the middle of the 20th century, as the photos of the time, when there was hardly any unevenness or protection, between the tracks, the houses and the Mediterranean. ¿Who should act? Initially, it should be Coast and Sea Directiondependent on the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, but it is an administration, if you allow the unintellectual simile, that could be similar to Keirrisonthe player signed by Barça who never made his debut with the first team.
Each town council does what it can – and the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, in its scope-, but when it comes to the train, which in some sections runs just 10 meters from the sea, things are complicated because no one assumes responsibility. Adif, Macias reasons, invested 20 million euros in a eight kilometer stretchbetween Mataró and Vilassar de Mar to try to soften the challenges of the stormswhose waves pass over the infrastructure, which has generated many traffic cuts. But much remains to be done in other hotspots, such as Sant Pol, and climate experts warn that extreme weather They will be increasingly frequent and virulent.
artificial barrier
Eduard Trucoassociation delegate Promotion of Public Transport In the Maresme, it considers the reinforcement of the R1 to be a “priority” to face the wrath of the climate. Because if one thing is clear, he says, it is that the line “is not going to move from the coast.” It would make no sense, he maintains, if you want to break the current mobility panorama of the region: in round numbers, 70% go in private vehicle for 30% that use public transport. That is to say, moving the train away from people would be an invitation for them to take the car.
Joan Carles Salmeronhistorian and director of the Center for Transportation Studies (CET), refers to the orography and the difficulty, for example, of lay the tracks next to the C-32 highway. But he insists on the main argument: “The coastal train was created with the business vision of fetch travelers and goods. The future lies precisely in going to look for customers, not in putting the train further away.” An example of the opposite is at the station. high speed of Camp de Tarragonalocated a world away from Tarragona, the city it serves.
Prudent mayors
Macias says, without giving names, that some mayor has asked him to transfer “with a small mouth“But they don’t say it in public because then they would have to explain to their citizens that now the station is five or 10 more kilometers there“. “The future in this line involves making it more permeable,” adds Salmerón. “And, above all, Truco points out, that the incidents “are managed much more efficiently” and “increase its offer so that it stops being deficient from a quality-service point of view.” Especially in summer, when it is filled with tourists and people who use it to go to work or study suffer serious hardships.
Regarding the first, the PTP representative points out that travelers are “totally helpless and without any type of information when there is a problem, which happens often. “It would be worth it, continues this expert, “better protocolize alternative services“, that is, advance to the breakdowns and have the contingency plans prepared with more agility. “There is little foresight, and since problems are frequent, the response should come much sooner.”
“Incidents must be better managed and supply increased so that it is no longer deficient from a quality-service point of view”
PTP delegate in Maresme
Regarding the increase in supply, a lot will have to do with the expansion of the platforms at the Arc de Triomf station, which will allow double composition trains to circulate on R1 (also R3 and R4), which will imply 30 % more capacity in each convoy. And now that we have asked, for the service to grow, Truco also urges unfold the road from Arenys to Blanesa single-lane stretch in which a single incident turns the entire line upside down.
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Asked about the possibility of extending the line beyond Maçanet-Massanes, the three experts consulted agree that the best way for rail transport to reach the Baix Empordà is the commitment to the ‘tram-train’, a project long claimed by the maritime regions of Girona that would connect them to the capital of the province and would allow serving nearly 113,000 peoplethe population of Palafrugell, Sant Feliu de GuíxolsLloret de Mar, La Bisbal, Palamós, Platja d’Aro and Calonge. Lengthening the R1 is not a good idea, Salmerón summarizes, because any extension of a route “results in a loss of efficiency of the line.”
What is a more realistic possibility is recover the orbital line projectthat connects Vilanova i la Geltrú and Mataró through the Vallès, through Granollers, Sabadell, Terassa, Mollet, Sant Sadurní and Vilafranca del Penedès. It is not contemplated in Rodalies’ plan for the current decade, but Macias points out that should appear in the 2030-2040 roadmap. The PTP delegate in Maresme considers him a “project with a lot of potential“, but admits that for now it is necessary to attend to other emergencies of the R1. Whenever we talk about Rodalies, it is better to be realistic.