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.

It has rained a lot these days, and guess which service went down this morning: Rodalies. Obviously, when I say that Rodalies is not working, I mean that even what usually functions is not working. The rains caused a slope to collapse, and the train drivers' union refused to work today for safety reasons. And since the Government, Renfe, and Adif fail every day to inform passengers, this morning thousands of users found themselves without trains and, in many cases, without a reinforcement bus service. All the screens at Sants said was that there was no service "due to external causes" (which were the train drivers).

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".

Granollers has taken the worst of the storm this Monday. The capital of the Vallès Oriental region has accumulated 343 liters since Saturday night, and just between midnight and ten o'clock this Monday morning, the rain left more than 100 liters there. All of this has caused a critical scenario, with the Congost river at its limit, many streets flooded, and even two sinkholes on the road near the courthouse that forced the temporary evacuation of two buildings. "It was chaos; in 10 minutes everything was flooded. Two more minutes and my car would have been stuck at the roundabout," says Glòria Ruiz, owner of the Destaca dry cleaners, which is right at the roundabout that gives access to the South beltway of Granollers and which was flooded by the torrential rains.

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.

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.

The President of the Generalitat traveled to Extremadura yesterday to celebrate the National Day there. He said he was going there to present and share an “open, inclusive, and solidary Catalonia.” I wonder when it stopped being open, inclusive, and solidary. Or does open, inclusive, and solidary mean Spanish? Who is the President saying all this to? To Madrid? To the King? To the Ibex-35? To PSOE voters in Catalonia, so they don’t vote for Abascal? Because Illa will leave, and the Extremaduran government will continue to instill the same old prejudices in Extremadurans. Notice that yesterday, to argue that she is against the new financing system, the Extremaduran President, María Guardiola, said that she wants to prevent a new wave of Extremaduran migration from repeating itself. I wonder what 43 years of autonomy has done for Extremadura if we are still like this.As you know, on these occasions the word that is repeated the most is solidarity. And after decades of seeing the fiscal effort we make in Catalonia, one wonders where the solidarity with the Catalans is, among whom there are thousands and thousands of children and grandchildren of Extremadurans, who have to take Rodalies every day, or the AP-7, or have to queue on healthcare waiting lists. I insist, good neighborliness is always good, but it must be based on respect and truth.And speaking of defending the Catalans for the services they pay the State for but which the State does not provide them, let's talk about Rodalies. The cable theft at the Estació de França, in Barcelona, caused delays on the R2 south line. Man, when they can already steal the cable at the Estació de França itself, it's not that you have your guard down, but rather that you have no guard at all, and that goes for Adif. It is the sixth theft in 10 days. And since a piece of news is better understood alongside another:A young woman creates a system to alert about Renfe and Adif delays. It is a system invented by Marina Castellano, a 24-year-old engineer from Badalona, which warns of Rodalies incidents up to three-quarters of an hour before the official channels. Nothing more needs to be said, right? It is a system that detects, verifies, and processes thousands of messages on social networks about breakdowns. Castellano is a student of mathematical engineering in data science at Pompeu Fabra University, and when she had to approach her final degree project (TFG), the idea of improving Rodalies information immediately came to mind "to make life a little easier for users". If a student can do it, why don't those who are paid to do it do it? Because they don't think about the people, that is, about the service they provide.

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.

Saturday of problems in Rodalies. Rail traffic has been interrupted since past 5 PM on line R4 between Sabadell Sud and Manresa due to an infrastructure incident between Sabadell Sud and Terrassa Estació del Nord. As reported by Renfe, an alternative road service has been established between Sabadell Sud and Manresa, with intermediate stops, to facilitate passenger mobility.

In March, the Government recovered a project that had been on hold for over fifteen years: the Transversal Railway Axis of Catalonia, a mixed passenger and freight line that would connect Lleida and Girona with high-speed trains directly. That is, without having to pass through the Catalan capital. This Wednesday, work has begun: the Generalitat has announced the start of the drafting of the technical studies necessary before starting its construction. This step is relevant, as it allows the project to be administratively reactivated with a concrete and budgeted first phase.

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.

The images of saturation on the platforms and crowds on trains to travel by train to the south of the country on the day of the eclipse continue to have repercussions. This Friday, two days after the chaos, the Government admitted that there was a "collapse" on Rodalies (commuter rail) during the afternoon of the astronomical phenomenon. But the Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructure, Manel Nadal, defended that it only occurred on the way south and that, on the other hand, the return "was orderly". However, in the evening, scenes of queues to enter the stations, especially those in Tarragona, and platforms packed to the brim were repeated, and Civil Protection had to activate the Ferrocat plan for crowds in pre-alert.