Normal high-speed rail service between Barcelona and Madrid will not be restored until the beginning of next week. This was announced this Wednesday by the new spokesperson for Adif in Catalonia, Antonio Carmona, who explained that the work to remove the train affected by Monday's fire is complex and can only be carried out at night, because it is incompatible with train traffic on the adjacent track.

Over the last ten days, the Catalan railway network has relived the nightmare of January. A new storm tested the infrastructure and forced the suspension of all train services on Saturday evening. Since then, incidents and a new strike by train drivers have meant that the recovery of service has been gradual and uneven. Nevertheless, the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque, stated this Friday that the network had responded "reasonably well" this time, and linked it, in part, to the 140 million invested after the January crisis to repair the infrastructure. This is the current state of the network, line by line:

The former director and historic spokesperson for Rodalies Renfe in Catalonia, Antonio Carmona, is now joining Adif: he will go from managing trains to coordinating infrastructure in Catalonia. This is stated in a resolution from Adif's public procurement portal. Carmona will be the new coordinator of the Rodalies de Catalunya network, meaning he will be in charge of promoting the development and full operability of the Catalan railway network.

New day of collapse at Rodalies. A wildcat strike by train drivers, as already happened last winter after storm Harry, has once again caused chaos on the Catalan railway network this Wednesday. A good number of the train drivers did not board the trains this morning, citing safety reasons after the heavy torrential rains that have fallen these days and, especially, after a tree and an embankment fell onto a train in Vilanova i la Geltrú on Tuesday night, without causing any injuries. The operator, Renfe, explained early on that there were "some trains" running "but not at 100%". They did not report, however, which trains were running and which were not, nor where they were passing, and directly recommended that users seek "alternative means".

First they said they would be ready in 2025. Then, in the summer of 2026 and later, at the beginning of 2027. Now, however, the schedule is delayed until the spring. The new trains that Alstom is manufacturing for Rodalies are taking a while to arrive. This was admitted this Thursday by the Secretary of State for Transport and Mobility, José Antonio Santano, in a talk at the Cercle d'Economia in Barcelona.

In Santa Bàrbara, Victòria street is known by the popular name "el barranquet" (the little ravine). And popular names never lie. Because no matter how much the urban layout tries to hide it, it is the natural path of the Pelós ravine through the center of town. It crosses the municipality from west to east and, if 290 l/m² fall in 24 hours, as happened this Friday, the water does not remember that there are houses. "The level of the flash flood has risen more than half a meter and even though, preventively, we had installed protective wooden boards in front of the garage door, the force of the current broke them and flooded the ground floor," explained Amaya Pla this noon, from in front of her parents' house.

The L9 tunnel boring machine is no longer the only one inhabiting the subsoil of Barcelona. The great machine that is to build the L8 tunnel for the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat is already assembled and ready to start operating, starting next week. This was confirmed today by the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque, during a site visit to the attack shaft of this infrastructure, which is located on the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, next to Plaça Espanya. The new tunnel boring machine, however, will not face the longest section of the tunnel, from Plaça Espanya to Gràcia, until February.

The streets are also applying pressure just hours before Pedro Sánchez's government brings the new housing decree-law to the Council of Ministers. Also in Barcelona, where this Monday the Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez, held various events and ended the day at the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya at the awards ceremony for La Vanguardia. 2,000 people according to the Guàrdia Urbana and 20,000 according to the organizers gathered on Avinguda Diagonal to demand that the new decree include, among other things, the indefinite extension of rental contracts and the suspension of evictions.

"Cities can end up paying a very high cost if no one worries about a more equitable distribution of resources." This is the statement of one of the most influential voices in territorial planning in Europe, architect and urban planner – and former City Councilor for Urban Planning in Milan – Alessandro Balducci (Rome, 1954), who visited Barcelona in July within the framework of presentations organized by the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB). Taking into account the invisible, that which politicians often do not want to see and which we are leaving "in the hands of algorithms," has become his firmest defense. In conversation with ARA, he asserts that institutions must begin to cooperate and "stop working like in the last century."

New strategy underway to transform the image of public transport in Catalonia. The Department of Territory wants to unify all public transport in Catalonia into a single brand or "umbrella brand," which is currently "fragmented" into different identities. This is stated in a tender that was made public this week, in which the Government is looking for a company to be commissioned with the "conceptualization, design, and creation" of this new brand and the development of a "manual" for its use. The budget is just over 250,000 euros and the deadline to have the new image defined is six months.

To lead a "broad" and "calm" debate that allows for overcoming the educational crisis. This is the task that the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, officially entrusted this Monday to the president of the Education Council of Catalonia (CEC), Joan Manuel Del Pozo. Del Pozo will be the one to lead the country-wide debate to redefine the Catalan educational model. A dialogue that aims to "rebuild consensus" and "reconstruct" bridges with the education sector, as explained by the regional minister, Esther Niubó.

September is back and, with it, the return to work, to university, and also commuting and traffic. And users of interurban buses – especially those entering and leaving through Barcelona's Diagonal – are already noticing it. In July, Barcelona City Council and the Department of Territory carried out a first attempt to organize the 1,800 buses that stop daily on this avenue by splitting the stops, which went from 13 to 23. But this easing has fallen short with the arrival of autumn.

The effect of the torrential rains this Wednesday night has once again highlighted the weaknesses of the railway network. A circulation stoppage has affected the R2, R2 North, and R11 lines almost all day between Barcelona (Sant Andreu) and Granollers Centre. The reason? The rain caused two new holes to appear in the ground of the tracks, very close to the point where last July a large sinkhole swallowed a crane from the Rodalies construction works, at the height of Vallbona. Circulation resumed this afternoon shortly before 5:30 PM, and trains will progressively recover their usual schedules, as reported by Renfe. For now, the alternative bus service is being maintained.

The Minister of Interior, Núria Parlon, defended this Thursday that the mobile alerts for the intense rains on Wednesday night were sent in light of predictions of "sudden" floods. "They do not arrive late, but rather when the population must protect itself," she argued. The minister said this in a joint appearance with the deputy director of Civil Protection of the Generalitat, Sergi Delgado, in which they reported on the management of some downpours that caused the death of a 48-year-old driver in Olivella, in the Garraf region, when he was trying to cross the Begues stream with his car, in addition to cuts on roads and trains, flight cancellations, and various floods.

Improving communication and information for travelers and making it "excellent" is one of the priorities that the Government has been demanding from Renfe and Adif for years. When a train is late, users often express that getting information and alternatives – or often simply knowing what is happening – is practically an impossible mission. Marina Castellano knows this well. She is from Badalona, has just turned 24, and is a user of Rodalies. She is also a student of mathematical engineering in data science at Pompeu Fabra University. For this reason, when she had to approach her final degree project (TFG), the idea of improving information for Rodalies immediately came to mind "to make life a little easier for users".

Another morning of railway chaos on the R2 South line. And, once again, the disruptions have to do with a copper theft in the area of the Estació de França in Barcelona: it is the sixth time in just ten days that the same event has occurred, and Adif confirms that it has again sent its technicians to the area to replace all the stolen material.

More goods on trains and fewer trucks on the roads. With this premise, the Government has made public a plan to grow freight transport by train in Catalonia, with a network of four new railway terminals in five years, which will help reduce the dependence – and congestion – of the road network for the transport of products.

The unions were clear that this Tuesday's strike call was a “difficult” one. Difficult because they did not want to lower the tone or the demands, but, at the same time, the first day of school "is a very important day," the sector's union leaders admitted to ARA just a few days ago. Thus, the turnout for this new day of protests –the sixth this year– has been much lower than in previous calls. Education assures that 12.6% of teachers have joined the strike, while the unions raise this figure to 30%.

Catalonia now has double the forests it had in the 1950s – the forest area has gone from 35% of the territory to almost 65% – and the fires of recent weeks — the last one this Friday in Collserola — and a legislative plot twist have strongly reopened a debate that already existed in the sector: on whom should the responsibility fall – and in whose name should the bill go – for maintenance? Currently, only 30% of forests are managed, meaning that active work is being done on them, such as logging, undergrowth clearing, or new plantings. In this context, a small change in a discreet article has revolutionized the sector. As the ARA explained a few months ago, Royal Decree-Law 21/2025, which obliged owners to maintain the land in condition and empowered the administration to do so at a cost – meaning, passing the bill to the owner – mutated during the parliamentary process and went from "obliging" to simply requesting "collaboration." A direct request from the forestry sector.

Quick and not excessively expensive actions at stations so that users begin to notice that something is improving. This is one of the lines of work that the Government has opted for to try to regain citizen confidence in Rodalies after its annus horribilis. The Government, the ministry, Renfe, and Adif have now announced the deployment of a plan for millionaire works, spread across various stations, which aims to transform these transit points into "decent" infrastructures while the major works, which will take years to complete and show results, are not yet underway.