Rodalies, a service without a soul

This disaster of Rodalies and Adif in Catalonia is no longer about an investment problem that requires years of work to recover from decades of neglect. The problem is that Rodalies is not a real entity with a common project, but a scattered set of tracks, catenaries, trains, unions, companies, and governments, with everyone only concerned with their own piece. At the risk of it being too early for metaphysics, the problem with Rodalies in Catalonia is that it has no soul. Those who work there with a spirit of service must not have power, and those who have power must not have a spirit of service.

Rodalies is in the hands of train drivers who decide at their whim whether to work or refuse, and of a Renfe and an Adif that the first thing they do when there is an incident is to say that it is due to “causes beyond the company's control”. The government of Catalonia has neither power nor authority over it. And for the party primarily responsible for this empty shell, the Ministry of Transport and Mobility (“mobility” is like a mockery for Rodalies users), the state train service in the northeast region does not matter at all, because it has always been taken very far away. And it does not matter when you read this, because it is the same with the PP as it is with the PSOE. In fact, the current minister, the socialist Óscar Puente, is the author of the phrase: “The train is experiencing the best moment in its history in Spain”, which is a slogan that should have the courage to be hung in all the stations of this country, to see if people agree with it.

If you cannot give users trains or buses, give them information, at least. Yesterday, they expelled a journalist from RAC1 who was on the Sants platform trying to provide the information that people did not have. If your company has a soul, your client matters to you.