The commuter train brain on which everything depends: 14 controllers for 1,200 trains

BarcelonaThere is silence and concentration. A screen over 10 meters wide, from end to end of the room, with the layout of all trains currently in circulation and 14 workstations. Each one is controlled by a manager, who monitors an area of the Catalan network. It is the already famous Barcelona Traffic Regulation Center (CRC), which depends on the infrastructure manager Adif and is located at the Francia station. Yesterday its managers explained, from the inside, how all this machinery works that directs the circulation of Cercanías and freight trains that pass through the conventional network.

This same control center was widely questioned in February, in the midst of the railway crisis, when it suffered a double blackout (a few minutes apart) that left Catalonia without trains. Everything happened in here. At that moment, the systems that provide information to this nerve center – the so-called CTCs or centralized traffic control centers – all failed at once due to a "software failure" and left the controllers blind and the trains stopped. Information was not reaching their screens. It happened just the day normality was supposed to resume on the network after the fatal accident in Gelida.

The technicians quickly activated the second system, the emergency one, explain Adif sources, but the software also failed on this second device: "What should never have happened, happened," admit the same sources. But it was not the first time: before, in September 2022, the control center also suffered a software problem that stopped Cercanías for hours and in 2015 a similar incident also occurred. In all cases, the Government described the situation as inadmissible and demanded "guarantees" so that the problems "would not happen again".

Adif's control center, from the inside

What the system (still) cannot controlThe first centralized control was launched in 1990 and has not stopped updating since then, according to Adif sources. Today, new technologies allow CRC staff to execute planned transport plans, direct traffic in real-time from this single room, and intervene in incident cases remotely, minimizing human error: they can activate or deactivate all track elements, signals, or switches.

Even so, the infrastructure manager explains that they still maintain operators in some stations: "We have not yet found a better way to do it from these positions," they explain. From here, work, maintenance, and the network's capacity are also planned, designing charts of where each and every train that wants to cross Catalonia will pass.

What the system cannot (yet) control

Despite everything, the storm Harry, which battered Catalonia at the end of January, caught them by surprise. "It was an unprecedented situation, one that none of us who have worked here for decades had ever seen," admit internal sources from the CRC. "It put us against the ropes," they continue. The same sources argue that each incident – and during those weeks there were more than a hundred – represents an enormous amount of work to redo all the graphics, with hundreds of trains. "It is a delicate, serious, and rigorous process that must be handled well," they defend.

In the event of an incident, they explain, there is also no "improvisation": protocols stipulate which move to make for each possible eventuality. When there is a cable theft or lightning fries a substation, the system also detects it because it registers the voltage drop and alerts the controllers. But absolute control is impossible and there are still elements that escape the records and cause trouble for the system and its operators. These are landslides, stones on the track, or trees falling on the rails. These are situations that, today, do not appear automatically on the screens. "We find out when the first driver who arrives informs us or when security forces, such as the police or firefighters, do," they explain from Adif. For this reason, Adif assures that the Innovation and Development (I+D) department is already working on the possibility of including sensors on the conventional network tracks, as the high-speed ones already have. "We are trying to develop some kind of landslide detection system, for example," assure sources from the infrastructure manager. For falling trees, there is still no clear remedy, beyond preventive felling. For falling trees, there is still no clear remedy, beyond preventive felling.The other weak point remains the software. After this winter's failures, Adif assures that it has asked for explanations from the supplier, Siemens, and has already opened an investigation to audit whether to request compensation. Nevertheless, they assure that the company has made all the necessary updates: "There is nothing to indicate that what happened in February could happen again, we are confident it will not happen," point out CRC sources. Adif sources add that "there is no better technology on the market" and that "the system is updated day by day and week by week to include improvements." "We are doing everything possible to prevent it from happening again," they insist. If something were to happen again, the plan B remains the same as it was in February: activate emergency control, located in Sants.