During your visit to the Gavà de Rodalies stationMonday, the ‘president’ Pere Aragones harshly charged the government for the Lack of investment in Catalonia in railway matters. He put both the current Executive and the previous ones in the same bag, without distinguishing between the era of the PP of Mariano Rajoy and the one currently commanded by Pedro Sánchez. Although, in a guess, the ERC leader was also referring to much more past times, and always with the comparative tort what does the Madrid’s community, that in the last 30 years it has taken almost half of the money that the State has allocated to this infrastructure essential for mobility and economic development. But if before everything was one rain of millions that ended in nothing, or in very little, now it does seem that there is a plan with results that can be seen and touched.
Since the presentation of the roadmap for the next 10 years -it happened on December 11 with the scar of La Sagrera as a landscape- more than one billion have already been executed in railway improvements in Catalonia. Of course, there is still a long way to go so that the word ‘reliability‘ can be associated with that of ‘Rodalies’.
There was a time when Spain decided that the conventional trains They were already alone, they did not need more accompaniment, nor coverage, nor maintenance. It was time to take a qualitative leap, to look countries like Japan, the mecca of high speed, in the face. The dream of Jose Maria Aznarwith Francisco Alvarez-Cascos as their Sancho Panza in Developmentwas that all the provincial capitals, so he said in his inauguration speech on April 25, 2000, were connected to the capital of the kingdom through AVE trains in less than four hours. Without realizing it, she was rooting for the emptied Spain, but that is another topic that we will not address here.
Most of the projects that have to do with small actions that make the network more reliable will be ready before 2025
The other collateral damage is that the Cercanías were left stranded. And some more than others… But if you think this is about criticizing the PP, between 1990 and 1993, with Felipe González in the Moncloa, In 1993, the Cercanías Transport plan had executed 14,680 million pesetas in Madrid and 1,409 in Barcelona. Seville took 7,480 and Valencia, 4,189 million of the old pesetas.
First, the high speed
Neither Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapaterowith Magdalena Alvarez at the helm of Fomento, he had enough vision or reflexes to reverse an inherited situation. In the last stage of the PSOE before Mariano Rajoy will win the elections jose white He took over the ministry and began to see some light. It was he who laid the first stone of the works in La Sagrera, for example. Then came the PP, the economic crisis and the promise of invest almost 4,000 million in Rodalies until 2025. Promise that translated into a tiny investment. And so to this day.
The burying of tracks and the bifurcation in Montcada will make it possible to make a leap to the railway system
To give you an idea, between 1998 and 2018, according to data from the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), in conventional trains, which concentrate more than 90% of rail journeys, less than 4,000 million euros were invested, while high-speed took more than 55,000 million with less than 5% of passengers. This is how, from Barcelona, to cite an example, it takes less time to go to Madrid than to Puigcerdà.
Pere Macias is responsible for Rodalies plan 2020-2030. He is a veteran of politics (he was mayor of Olot, ‘councillor’ and deputy in Madrid) but he is also Engineer of roads, canals and ports, so the train wreck between these two worlds combines well, the technical and the executive, which do not always follow the same path. He knows very well what it is to deal with delicate issues related to mobility, since he was responsible for leading the project to connect the tram along the Diagonal, in Barcelona, for commissioned by the government of Ada Colau, an infrastructure that is in full partial implementation
finished work
On Monday he was in Gavà during the visit of the ‘president’. Observing, without entering the rag. Explain to this newspaper that this section of the R2 is not especially conflictive. In fact it is not at all. Nor is the line as a whole one of the most delicate of the entire Catalan railway network. There are other emergencies, come on. Macias explains that as of December 31, 2022, they had already been executed (finished work) projects worth 975.52 million euros, so five months later, that figure, he maintains, “has already comfortably exceeded one billion euros.” To this we must add another 1,300 million already awarded and pending execution and another 1,600 that are in the process of public tender. In total, 3,900 million in one way or another mobilized.
The plan is divided into two decades. For the first, until the end of 2025this planned an investment of 3,461.87 million euros. Thus, with two and a half years left to finish this first term, almost a third of what was promised has already been completed by the end of 2020. “It is important to note that, for the first time in many years, we are investing the same, or even more, in the conventional rail system than in the high speed”, says Macias.
Montcada: account pending
One of the most important works of the entire Rodalies plan is expected to be underway before 2026. Its about burying of tracks in Montcadawhich will eliminate two criminal level crossings and will mean a very important urban leap for the municipality. But it will also be for the railway system, because which butterfly flutter but here in an optimistic version, the work, which will cost around 600 million euros, will generate an extra track that will allow for the Regionals to advance to the Rodaliessomething that is now impossible in the mass circulation of trains around Barcelona. Travelers on the R11 going to Girona will benefit from this.
To this project we must add the one that is about to go out to competition: the Aigües sheep jumping (a new fork, so that we understand each other), also in Montcada, which will allow trains to be diverted to the Passeig de Gràcia tunnel and, in the spirit of taking measures here so that those abroad benefit, make the arrivals from Sabadell and Terrassa. It will cost approximately 150 million euros.
A package of 131 million euros will improve catenaries, tracks, electronic systems and trenches
I also know has executed the new Sant Andreu station (about eight million euros), which replaced the oldest halt in Spain, or that of Santa Perpètua – Riera de Caldes, inaugurated in June 2022 and which cost 1.76 million euros. But beyond the most visible –such as the tender for the extension of platforms at Arc de Triomf that will make it possible to expand the capacity of the trains on lines R1, R2 and R4-, Macias highlights a package that total 131 million euros that correspond to 107 small works that have to do with “the asset replacement“, that is, improvements in catenaries, tracks, electronic systems, trenches (open-air side walls).
little good things
All these interventions have already been carried out and there are another 900 in the pipeline. These more surgical actions are the ones that must minimize the incidents that Adif’s ancient infrastructure still suffers today. In the Terrassa-Manresa line, for example, highlights Macias. had until 10 temporary limitations of speed due to problems on the road and trenches. “Fixed, with which you improve the reliability of the service.”
It is these minor interventions that are intended to curb the breakdown indentation that generate delays, trains stopped between stations, travelers trapped in tunnels… Projects such as the installation of remote commands of electrical substations. A overvoltage problem cancels these facilities, which forces Adif personnel to travel to do something as homely as raise the plumbs of the electric panel. “Something that sometimes requires half an hour of breakdown, with the trains stopped, it will be done in 15 seconds without the circulation hardly being affected”, sums up the person in charge of the Rodalies plan.
You will have heard or read it a thousand times, the fact that a electric failure has forced the stoppage of a certain line (it happened in 2022, with 15 trains stopped in tunnels in Barcelona due to a failure in El Prat). The time it takes to solve it is what Adif needs to move. That is going to end: they are already being installed remote controls worth 30 million euros.
more reliable catenary
The same will be done with the interlocks, the system that caught fire in Gavà and which is in charge of controlling all the signals and tracks of the stations. With 40 million awarded, it will update the older ones to adapt them to contemporary electronics. This is not the case of the one in Gavà, which will be rebuilt but the truth is that it was quite new (2018).
Add the improvements in needles that were in a deplorable state and the change of catenary between Maçanet and Portbouwhich will be ready before 2025. Most of the projects that have to do with small actions that muscle the network and make it more reliable will be ready before 2025. They are about 625 million, for about 200 that are reserved for before 2030.
These types of breakdowns are approximately one third of the total. Another piece of the cake goes to the operability problems -derived from the lack of train drivers- and the breakdowns in the older trains, especially due to failures in the doors and incidents with the air conditioning. For the latter, Renfe announced in December the purchase of 97 new trains, for a value of 860 million euros.
Related news
For the second five-year period, the most expensive work of the entire decade will remain pending: the new Torrassa interchange, which has been talked about since time immemorial and will cost between 700 and 800 million. Is a basic pieceargues Macias, in order to allow a better urban integration of infrastructure, alleviate saturated station of Santssince many travelers from the R2 and R4 will already be able to continue towards Barcelona in metro with L1 and L9/L10. “It will also allow the regional ones to have an express route from Bellvitge to Sants, with which the people of Tortosa will benefit from a work to be done in L’Hospitalet“, Add.
What does it depend on?
All of this will depend on the willingness of future governments to endorse the current government’s road map. Everything that is a new work will depend on the annual budgets. If a new executive decides to turn off the spigot because he thinks there are other priorities, the plan will be left halfway. AND Will these 6,346 million euros be enough for Rodalies to function properly? There will be work to be done, but Macias believes that, at the very least, things will catch up. A piece of information should help to gauge the success or failure of the thing: the objective is Increase travelers by 50% in this period. Today there are about 400,000, only 15,000 of the pre-covid figures. In the mid 90’s, with Merce Sala at the helm of Renfe, the company improved the trains and drove improvements in management and service. The validations grew that 50%. Cause effect. We will see now.