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).

The historic spokesperson for Renfe in Catalonia, Antonio Carmona, has been removed from his position in Rodalies. According to has advanced La Vanguardia and the company sources have confirmed to ARA, Carmona was dismissed a few weeks ago as director of institutional relations, from where he acted as an interlocutor with administrations and the media. Since then, according to the same sources, he has been in charge of new "functions in the commercial services" of the railway operator.

Lines R13, R14, R15, R16 and R17 of Rodalies are accumulating delays that may exceed 30 minutes since Monday morning due to a technical incident between Sitges and Garraf stations. The disruption originated from a train breakdown, which was stopped until passengers were transferred to another train. Once the transfer was completed, the train was able to resume service. In addition, Rodalies also reported an infrastructure incident on this same stretch. Although the forecast was to gradually recover schedules throughout the morning, the affected lines continue to not return to normal, and at 3 PM in the afternoon, delays of more than half an hour are still maintained.

The three lines affected by the collapse of the tracks this Wednesday in Montcada i Reixac are now running again. The R2, R2 Nord, and R11 have resumed service this Sunday morning between the stations of Sant Andreu and Montcada i Reixac, which had been stopped since the collapse of one of the shafts from the works to bury the tracks on the border between the two cities. Temporarily, a speed limit has been set on the affected stretch.

Three days after the collapse that on Wednesday swallowed a crane at the R2 line's underground works, Adif and Renfe have announced key steps to restore traffic on the affected tracks, but without yet specifying when the R2, R2 Nord, and R11 will return to normal operation. This Saturday at noon, Adif declared the sinkhole repaired after finishing filling the hole that opened on the border between Barcelona and Montcada i Reixac with concrete. Once all safety checks were completed, Renfe began conducting empty test runs, with empty trains, before restoring service.

A worker who was carrying out maintenance on the train tracks near Sant Mori (Alt Empordà) died early this Saturday morning. According to police sources, he suffered an electric shock while maintaining the railway line, halfway between the Sant Miquel de Fluvià and Camallera stations. At the latter, Adif has been carrying out works for some time. The victim is a 66-year-old man.

The Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque, has presented the "first Railway Services Plan of Catalonia", which states it will organize and reorganize the railway system (and by extension, the mental health and family life of the beloved Antonio Carmona). I read that they will put on more trains, that they will double the kilometers of track, that they will rethink "the timetables, routes, and frequencies of Commuter, medium-distance, and high-speed trains", and that they want to implement "regular and repetitive timetables, easy for passengers to remember, along with the improvement and increase of frequencies throughout the network". And it all seems very good to us that they are moving forward. And that they put on trains, yes. However, that they want – as a plan – to implement repetitive and easy-to-remember timetables for passengers will keep me erotically charged from head to toe until I get my pink card.

Achieving the design of services "good for the whole territory" with the infrastructures we currently have – and those planned in the short term – and doubling the number of users: going from the current 455,000 daily travelers to one million passengers by 2040. This is the premise on which the Generalitat has been working for months and which it made public today with the presentation of the first Railway Services Plan of Catalonia, which should allow the critical situation of the Catalan railway network to be revived. This is how the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque, and the Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructures, Manel Nadal, explained it this Tuesday afternoon. "They always tell us that the most orthodox thing would be to design the services first and then the infrastructures; well, we have done it," said Nadal.

With that gift of opportunity that has always characterized him, Adif has made an offering to the Holy Father of a gift that allows him to grasp the reality of Catalan land as soon as he steps off the plane. Exactly at the same time that Leo XIV was landing at El Prat airport, an incident at Adif's Traffic Control Center in Barcelona left the entire country without commuter trains: R1, R2, R3, R4, R8, R11, R14, R15, R16, R17, RG1, RL3, RL4, RT1, RT2. The service was interrupted for more than half an hour, until it was gradually recovered. And it fell again. Your Holiness, welcome to Catalonia.

Catalonia's railway network was briefly paralyzed on Tuesday on two occasions. While at midday trains in the Barcelona area were suspended for half an hour due to an incident at the Traffic Control Center (CCT) at Estació de França, Adif reported that traffic was interrupted again three hours later, at 3:30 PM, this time affecting all of Catalonia. The stoppages would be attributed to the IT management of the CCT by the company Siemens. Although both incidents were brief and technical teams were able to restore service a few minutes after publicly reporting the general breakdown, delays are expected to persist throughout the day. In response to these errors, both Adif and Rodalies have announced that they will initiate "legal action against Siemens".

One cold and one hot at the works that Adif has underway on the Catalan road network. The work on the Garraf railway tunnels has finished a week earlier than planned and will be able to reopen next Monday the 8th. On the other hand, the infrastructure manager has reported that the R3 works are being extended again: the first phase, which was due to open last May, will not be completed until the end of the year.

"Oh, it's difficult to say when the works will begin. It's a complex, very important and strategic line for the country. The urban planning part has been done since 2010 and now we will have to start with studies and projects. It won't be tomorrow; these infrastructures cost". These are statements by the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, to Catalunya Ràdio about the macro-project that has been decisive to unblock the approval of the budgets: the orbital railway line. ERC wants to reactivate a plan that has been in a drawer for twenty years to give its "yes" to the accounts. In fact, the Republicans present it as a future bet for a network that this year has experienced an unprecedented crisis and is still trying to recover some semblance of normality.

One of the mantras ERC resorts to in defining its relationship with the PSC is that of "gaining sovereignty". The Republicans explain that their agreements are based on achieving more resources, competences, and decision-making capacity for Catalonia. Have they achieved this? For now, through republican and socialist pushes and pulls, they have been unblocking some of the files agreed upon in the investitures of Salvador Illa (2024) and Pedro Sánchez (2023). However, they have found the solution in a mixed formula: establishing companies jointly owned by the Generalitat and the State, where the state administration has a majority.

It has gone from being a project kept in a drawer since 2010 to becoming the protagonist of the budget negotiations between the PSC and ERC. At ARA we explain what the Orbital Railway Line (LOF) is in seven key points:

This morning, sports, Barça, gave us a reason to create a cheerful cover, that of theThe result has been another night of celebration for a fanbase that, unlike what happens in so many other aspects of the country, has high self-esteem. We hope that the adherence to Catalan identity that Barça has provided in a society of immigration continues to function thanks to these successes and the identification with this very young and very normal team. Another good piece of news: the PCR test on the Catalan woman who has been in isolation at the Hospital Clínic since Saturday has come back negative for hantavirus. The woman was admitted for quarantine because she had been in the same plane for a few minutes with the Dutch woman who contracted it on board the cruise ship and who ended up dying.The woman continues to show no symptoms and, in accordance with epidemiological surveillance protocols, will remain confined and under observation at the Clínic for prevention. In seven days, another PCR will be performed to confirm the negative result.And here we return to the harsh reality: from today onwards, the Rodalies service is once again subject to a charge. (It has always been subject to a charge, of course, we all pay for it: we are referring to the user's direct payment). Payment in exchange for what? The trains run when they want, the timetables are an intention, but of course, in many journeys, the train is a bus. The improvement of the service is being slow. It is clear that due to the harsh reality of education. A week of strikes in schools and institutes begins. Relations between the department and the unions are very tense. The only thing missing was for the unions to find out from the radio that the counselor wanted to see them on Thursday. They will meet on Thursday and, on top of that, we have the scandal of the infiltration of two Mossos agents into a teachers' assembly that we already talked about last Friday. Now that more details are known, apart from what it has of authoritarian regime espionage, it is even more humiliating that the police were discovered on such a simple mission.Let's see if it solves things a bit that we have budgets for this 2026. Late, but we will have budgets. So once the Andalusian elections have passed on Sunday, PSC and Esquerra will be able to present their agreement. It is scandalous, but Catalanophobia sets the pace of Spanish politics. Moreno Bonilla is campaigning to preside over Andalusia by constantly talking about Catalonia. After the breakdown weeks ago due to the new financing system for Catalonia, Esquerra set out to find a striking agreement. There is talk of a transfer of powers from the State, but in the meantime, Junqueras has explained that the agreement will include a train, curiously. This: An orbital axis that connects Maresme with Garraf, passing through the two Vallesos, Baix Llobregat and Penedès. In black the sections that exist and in yellow those that should be built. We are talking about up to 5,000 million euros of investment, which the State should largely provide. The project is old, but now they have taken it out of the drawer where it was sleeping.Good morning.

Rodalies users will pay again to use the train starting Saturday, May 9. After arguing that these past three months are "the period in which the most intense work and investment has been made in Rodalies to improve its operation," the Government has noted a "progressive improvement" in the service and, therefore, sees it viable to lift some exceptional measures, decreed "to accompany users during this period," as announced this Thursday by the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque. Thus, the last day to use the railway network for free will be Friday, May 8.

"Public transport should be considered an essential service, just like education or healthcare." This is one of the maxims of Joan Carles Salmerón, the director of the Centre d'Estudis del Transport Tèrminus and one of the experts in mobility in Catalonia. This week he has presented the book The bus and coach in Catalonia, the first publication that collects the entire history of the sector. All of this, at a time when buses have taken over from Rodalies, which is still struggling to recover from the crisis opened in January, after the fatal accident in Gelida.

Adif plans to restore freight train traffic through the Rubí tunnel next week. According to the manager of railway infrastructure, from the night of April 28, trains will once again run through this strategic point for the transport of goods by rail to France. This marks the completion of the first phase of the reinforcement, stabilization, and improvement work on the tunnel's infrastructure, which has lasted seven weeks.

In Catalonia, the population grows by 1% each year. In a population of 8 million people, this means 80,000 more people annually. According to Idescat, it's 76,000. If there are 3 people per household, this is equivalent to about 26,000 new homes each year (80,000/3 = 26,000). When land is ceded by municipalities, the construction of a home of about 80 or 100 m² has a cost of €150,000. The total annual investment to do this is, therefore, 3.9 billion euros per year (26,000x150,000 = 3.9 billion €/year). We must start by creating a territorial plan for Catalonia that identifies available land and facilitates municipalities making it available to the Generalitat for construction. However, is it viable to create a public-private company that builds these homes and rents them directly to individuals? If the investment amortization period is set at thirty years, the public debt it will entail will be around 117,000 million euros (3.900x30 = 117.000 M€). In the case of a 50% public and private investment, it would amount to 58,500 million euros.The average gross income of a Catalan family with two workers is €36,000/year (€1,500 x 12 months x 2 people = €36,000). The net income, after deducting income tax, is €25,200 (€36,000x0.7 = €25,200/year). The cost of a rental property should not exceed 30% of net income to live with some margin; that is, the rental cost should be less than €7,560/year (€25,200x0.3 = €7,560/year).The income generated by this rental —the  7,560 €— should remunerate three concepts. Calculated per dwelling and year, they are:—The return of the invested public capital (€75,000, equivalent to 50% of the €150,000 construction cost, over thirty years). €75,000/30 = €2,500/year.—The remuneration of the private investor (the remaining €75,000, starting from an investment of 5% profitability). 75,000x0.05= €3,750/year.—The payment of the debt interest (assuming an interest rate of 3% per year and calculated with a margin to cover interest variation and management cost). 75,000x0.03 ≈ 2,500 €/year.Therefore, the families'  7,560 € would not be enough to remunerate the sum of the three concepts, which amounts to  8,750 €.This situation would only be possible if families' income tax were halved during the rental period; that is, (36,000-25,200)/2 = €5,440/year. Thus, available family income would go from €25,200 to €30,560 (€36,000-€5,440 = €30,560). The percentage of net income after taxes dedicated to housing would be 8,750/30,560 = 29%, and it would meet the objective set by independent organizations.A rental housing system financed by public and private capital can be a solution, which, moreover, has the advantage of offering security and profitability to private investment. According to the Draghi report, the European Union has more private savings than the United States, but no mechanisms for investment. This would be one. However, the following conditions would need to be met:—The agreement must be controlled and guaranteed by public administrations, private investors, and tenants.—The project must be maintained as a whole; not individually, housing by housing. It gives security to the investor and the tenant.—Getting municipalities to cede square meters of municipal land is not possible unless it is with the patronage of the State.This is a model that promotes housing for the population with medium-low incomes at a moderate cost. It has been used in Holland and Austria. It is a safe, but not a quick, solution.

The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, met this morning at first light with the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at Palau, to address the situation in which Renfe's commuter service in Catalonia has been immersed since the crisis opened in January, with the accidents in Adamuz and Gelida. This is the first meeting between the two leaders since the railway crisis broke out, almost three months ago. Puente and Illa arranged this meeting by taking advantage of the fact that the minister has been in Barcelona since yesterday because he attended the first edition of the AENA literary awards last night.