He was accused of suffering from sensory hallucinations. freak out. But he brought those "signs" down from his head and to the feet of everyone. In 1914, the engineer Rafael Campalans was commissioned to lay out the "signs" of Catalonia: roads, telephones, railways, hydraulic works... He now tells us, from beyond the grave, that "sensitive eyes glimpse the signs of things, of their time." This was the total, 360-degree, holistic work of the Commonwealth, the cornerstone since 1714, of the Catalonian state and welfare state: "tomorrow." Perceiving the future and making it real. Campalans, a master healer, listened to the chucucho.
They went full speed ahead. Tuuuuuut. In 1920, Catalonia had 1,533 kilometers of railways. Holland 3,399, Switzerland 5,112, and Belgium 8,814. Pippp. Experts estimated that Catalonia would have 3,200 kilometers of railways. In 1920, there were 2.3 million people. In 2025, more than 8 million, and we have… 1,794 kilometers of rails. Txuf-txuf… From a steam train, from a witch, from a wild tribe, throw peanuts at me from the colonial window. And there are "signs."
Piiii-piiii. Throughout the country, not "territory," you will hear signals of distance, not "suburbs." In Cunit, the train passing is the high-speed concrete roller that is unifying Barcelona with all of Catalonia: the metropolitan roundabout made of tar. When the real train arrives, no one can get on. In Blanes, it's the same. But in Santa Coloma de Queralt or Gósol, they have never seen the train. There are four towns (like hundreds) that show that Catalonia isn't a suburb. These are places with imposed provinces, but which are naturally different. The maps don't reflect reality. They are hinges of suffering that express that Catalonia is a lasagna: with many layers, and now they want to cement everything together. They are red flags. Warnings of the country. Now the "signs" aren't from tomorrow: but from territorial schizophrenia. We feel voices, lights... We feel death.
Pipppp. The stubborn, drug-addicted Barcelona of Gos-unreal-Cobi 92 has had everything blown up. Without a Catalunya DF, there will be no Barcelona or Catalunya. We need a united country of pride and confederal reality. We need trains like in 1914 to "structure the territory, rebalance the space, stop depopulation, so that all of Catalonia may be one within its diversity." We need trains to reach the Pyrenees, which they never have, but the illiterate who design a country from offices and buy houses to never be there and explain to us how to live, feel, die do. We need to look the dying being in the face. Can the Generalitat unite the provincial councils? Can we separate the town councils? We need to redraw and reorganize the real Catalonia! Simplification! Are we a country? Or a Barcelona monarchical crown? We need a third crown, not one of thorns, cement, or illiteracy.
President Enric Prat de la Riba, the train driver, shouted in 1914: "We did not create the Commonwealth to have a larger provincial council, nor to give the Catalan soul a small, subordinate, secondary administrative body: a province... We all want a state body for Catalonia." Rafael Campalans drowned in Torredembarra in 1933. Today he would die waiting for a train that never runs in a country on a siding. We have gone from wanting to be a state to being physically present. But... Do you feel the "signs"? The country is not dead, and it is not traveling by train.
