Renfe has already begun the tasks to dismantle the train that caught fire on Monday on the high-speed line between Barcelona and Madrid and which has kept this corridor running at half capacity since then. The work to remove this part of the train, the most complicated one, began on the night between Thursday and Friday. Once cleared of scrap metal, it will be necessary to check the condition of the track and the catenary and, if necessary, repair it. Nevertheless, the infrastructure manager, Adif, is maintaining the planned schedule and expects that the line will be able to return to normal next week. Even so, at this time neither Renfe nor Adif can specify which exact day it will be possible to return to circulating on both tracks.

The railway chaos due to the fire on a high-speed train continues this Tuesday morning. Train circulation resumed yesterday, after being halted all afternoon, but trains can only run on a single track in a specific section in Aragon, which greatly complicates the mobility of the trains and the more than 11,000 passengers affected yesterday.

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.

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.

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.

Portbou has the last train station in Catalonia before crossing the administrative border with France through the Belitres tunnel. The station and the entire complex of tracks occupy nearly a third of the surface area of this small municipality on the Costa Brava, linked since the 19th century to the country's railway history. Inside the Portbou facilities there is a workshop, the only one of Renfe in the Girona region, where maintenance and repair tasks for locomotives and freight trains are carried out. Over time, however, this base has been losing weight and personnel, until, finally, Renfe has decided to stop its activity.

Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat is a brand associated with good service: generally punctual, clean, modern, with constant maintenance of the trains, tracks, and stations thanks to a sustained budgetary investment regardless of the party that has governed the Generalitat. In FGC facilities, you are in Denmark for a while.Now turn everything I have written upside down to describe the mockery of a service into which the constant lack of investment by Spanish governments, with their delusions of grandeur regarding high-speed rail (which they now do not know how they will maintain either), and the managerial incompetence of Renfe and Adif have turned Rodalies. It is true that the FGC network has four times fewer kilometers than the Rodalies network, but this makes the state in which the State's trains operate—when they do operate—in our country even more painful.Under these circumstances, the unification of the brands is the least of the problems that train users have, and rather what it would be about is converting the railway service in our country into something as similar as possible to what FGC currently offers. It would be very sad if the FGC brand had to carry the pathetic image of Rodalies.And, by the way, if the Generalitat is worried about the logos that our trains must carry in the future, it should start by ensuring the custody of the new trains that will arrive now, because if they end up like the current ones, scribbled on and dirtied by graffiti artists, neither the brand nor the logo of the parent brand that they are currently commissioning will be seen.

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.

Three people were slightly injured this Tuesday afternoon when the false ceiling of the Fabra i Puig Rodalies station in Barcelona collapsed. The Medical Emergency System, the SEM, explained that they were two men and a woman, who had to be taken to the Vall d'Hebron Hospital. Renfe, which manages this infrastructure, has decided to close the station for repairs and, as a result, R4 Rodalies line trains do not stop there.

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.

With wild enthusiasm I read in ARA that the Government, the ministry, Renfe and Adif have announced "the deployment of a million-dollar works plan, distributed among various stations, which aims to transform these transit points into "dignified" infrastructures while the major works are pending". The major works will take years and perhaps, when they are done, we will already be stardust, to put it poetically. "The station is the gateway to the system, and its comfort speaks of what the user will find afterwards," said the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque. For example, at the Molins de Rei station, they will carry out works with an investment of "more than nine million after two years of being stalled". At Llinars del Vallès and Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, more than two million. At Sants, 150 million.

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.

Competition has warned Renfe and established that it must open its workshops in La Sagra, Toledo, to the competitor operator in high-speed Iryo to be able to carry out the maintenance of its trains. The National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) has partially upheld Iryo's complaint about access to Renfe's heavy maintenance facilities. As the supervisory body communicated this Tuesday, Renfe Mantenimiento must allow Iryo's trains access to the workshop for the disassembly and assembly of their bogies.

Beyond the traffic problems inherent in the railway network, last year it became clear that moving on foot, with reduced mobility, a stroller, or a wheelchair through Rodalies stations was often an insurmountable obstacle course. In March 2025, more than half of the elevators (52%) and almost half of the escalators at Rodalies stations were not working. "The situation was absolutely unsustainable, undesirable, and inadmissible," assures the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque. According to the Government, Renfe, and Adif, this situation of "neglect" has now been reversed.

Monday 27. Fire in the metro, wagons full of smoke, ambulances, injured. Little surprise and little scandal. My experience, one in millions. Wednesday 15, 11.45 a.m. I get in the car to catch the train in Caldes de Malavella. 12.20 p.m. At the ticket office they tell me I'm lucky: there's a strike but the driver of the next train isn't participating. 1.00 p.m. Halfway there, public address: “Due to a gas leak, this train will stop at Cardedeu. We will open the doors in case anyone wants to continue on their own.” Temperature on the platform, 38º. I hear some drivers talking amongst themselves: a taxi is coming to pick them up and the train will go back, but they won't inform the passengers for now. The tourists stay on the train. 1.20 p.m. The locals queue up on our own at a bus stop. 1.45 p.m. I'm lucky, I get on the bus. 2.10 p.m. In Granollers, I catch a Sagalés to Barcelona. Everyone gets on. The aisle is a tin of sweaty sardines. “I lived in Bolivia, that's the standard there,” says a passenger. The air conditioning can't cope and anxiety spreads. “There's a hammer over there to break the window,” I reassure a lady who is choking. We rush like crazy on the highway. 3.00 p.m. Fabra i Puig. Two metro and FCG transfers. In total, about €20 extra in tickets. I arrive after 4 p.m. to the 3 p.m. meeting, dirty, tired, and starving. More than four hours to travel a hundred kilometers (24 km/h).