As expected, Monday has arrived and today's train lottery has brought no luck. Renfe has ended up offering road service where it cannot yet provide rail service.

His name sounds familiar. Antonio Carmona. You've heard it so many times... He has a calming voice, a way of soothing tempers. He was a spokesperson for Renfe, then they promoted him to director, and then demoted him back to spokesperson. I can imagine the reason: there's no one else capable of being the scapegoat for train management. And above them all, they put an incompetent person from Madrid. I don't know what Antonio Carmona earns, but it's clear they should pay him with copper wire and overhead lines by weight. He's the most valuable person in road safety. If they transfer Cercanías (commuter rail), they should transfer Antonio Carmona.

The commuter rail service is once again uncertain this weekend. At this time, normal rail service is not guaranteed for Saturday, nor is an alternative bus service. Since Friday night, train service has been experiencing problems on all lines after a day marked by another partial shutdown of the R1 line due to a new landslide onto the tracks between Tordera and Maçanet. The incident—which occurred at a point not identified in the surveys carried out this week—has reopened the crisis with train drivers, who claim they cannot work safely, less than 24 hours after rail service was restored. After midnight, representatives from the Catalan Government, Renfe (the national railway company), and Adif (the railway infrastructure manager) met at the Department of Territory to monitor the rail situation, and, according to the Catalan News Agency (ACN), several risk points on the network have been identified requiring urgent action. The meeting was already scheduled for 7 p.m., before tonight's strikes, but it has been postponed twice and resumed without any announcement being made so far, with further meetings expected throughout the weekend. Government sources assure that a service shutdown like Wednesday's has not been considered, but they also cannot guarantee how service will be provided this Saturday and anticipate "disruptions," without specifying their extent. Since Friday night, some lines have experienced delays exceeding half an hour. The same sources attribute the problems affecting the commuter rail network to the intense and continuous rain of recent days. The Department of Territory has already announced that it will hold further follow-up meetings this Saturday and Sunday at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Overcrowded trains, delays, people stranded on the platform... The railway collapse in Catalonia could at least have a "relatively easy" solution, according to the latest report by Comisiones Obreras (Workers' Commissions). At the beginning of the month, this union dusted off a project they had already attempted to launch four years ago, in 2021, and which they now consider "more necessary than ever." The aim is to shake up the current "scarce" Avant services (which offer medium-distance high-speed journeys at regulated prices) to create a "real" Catalan public network of high-speed trains for medium-distance journeys, adequate to current demand and allowing the working class and students to travel to work or university every day. And to do so with sufficient seats, on time, and at competitive prices.

The month of March will be marked in red on this year's calendar as One of the worst months ever experienced on the commuter rail network Catalonia. The overlapping of a multitude of construction projects, the discontent of Renfe workers over the announcement of the transfer, and the usual service incidents that users are well aware of have led to more than 75 significant incidents being recorded last month. That's practically twenty per week. Or, in other words, more than 2.5 significant incidents on average each day, including those officially reported and those that have come to light because users themselves have publicly denounced the disruption to the service.