Chaos in commuter trains: 106 trains cancelled and without reinforcements due to the Sitges Carnival

BarcelonaCarnival weekend is very complicated for those who want to travel by train and, above all, for those who want to celebrate tonight's party in the south of Catalonia. After announcing that this weekend There would be no trains arriving at Sant Vicenç de Calders station due to renovation works in the area, This morning, the Cercanías railway company has reported that, since early in the morning, the R2 Sur and R4 lines have been experiencing widespread delays and altered frequencies due to a situation of "labour conflict" with the drivers' union.

For all these reasons, by 8pm on Saturday, 106 trains had already had to be cancelled on the railway network and there have been widespread delays of around 30 minutes on the R2 Sur and R4 lines throughout the day. In addition, Cercanías announced that, due to this conflict, the reinforcement that had been scheduled between Sitges and Barcelona for this Carnival night will be suspended.

The suspension of the reinforcement does not imply that there will be no trains between the Catalan capital and Sitges, but that the 50,000 extra train seats that Cercanías had planned for the times of greatest passenger influx to the R2 south line, which links Barcelona with Sitges, will not be available. In a tweet on X, the Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructure, Manel Nadal, admitted that the reinforcements on the R2 South for Carnival "will hardly be possible for work reasons" and also warned that "crowds will surely occur."

Trade union conflict

In a statement, Renfe says that it "regrets that a conflict with the union of train drivers is affecting users just when an Action Plan is underway to improve the service" and warns that the situation experienced this Saturday "also affects the provision of trains in workshops and will have repercussions on the programming of the service on working days." From Cercanías they confirm that they will give more details about these effects in the next few hours.

On the contrary, sources from UGT consulted by Efe have completely disassociated the incidents of this Saturday from the labor conflict over the transfer of Cercanías, which next Monday will be addressed by the general company committee at a national level and which will probably end with a strike call. The same sources have indicated that the delays this Saturday are due to the fact that yesterday the train drivers' schedules were changed for today, without respecting the five days' notice required by law. They claim that most workers were not aware of the changes, since they had already finished their work days when they were informed of the changes.

In the same vein, the Spanish Railway Drivers' Union (Semaf) has insisted that the delays "are the result of a coordination error between the Generalitat, Renfe and Adif." "The rush and lack of coordination between public companies and the administration to cover the new service planning led them to establish a failed service schedule," they said in a statement.