Commuter rail, suspended until further notice: "I haven't been home for two days"

Barcelona / TarragonaClosed gates and out-of-service trains. Tuesday's double accident on the Catalan rail network, shortly after the serious collision between two trains in Adamuz, Córdoba, has raised serious concerns about the state of the infrastructure in Catalonia. For this reason, authorities decided in the early hours of the morning to suspend all commuter rail service until the safety of the entire network could be confirmed. Transport Minister Óscar Puente confirmed this afternoon that the service would not operate for the entire day. This morning, stations were filled with people who were unaware of the service suspension, and information points were set up to assist them.

The suspension caused confusion for everyone who had gone to the train stations in the early hours. Like Jay, who arrived at Sants station around 8:10 a.m. to go to work in Gavà. "I didn't know the trains were suspended," he said. Worried, he says he has to be at work by 9 a.m. and there's no alternative that can get him there on time. "Now I'll call my brain to let it know I'm not going to make it," he admits.

Another person affected is Alba Linares, who has been trying to get to La Bisbal d'Empordà since noon yesterday. Because of the storm, trains haven't been running since before the other lines stopped. She spent almost an hour trying to find one, but all the trains advertised on the station screen kept disappearing. Finally, they offered her a Renfe train to Maçanet where she could take a bus home, but she decided it was cheaper to stay another night in Barcelona. She finally managed to get an AVE train ticket to Girona and will take a bus home from there.

Kessia has also been enduring her ordeal since last night. A resident of Segur de Calafell, she was on the train near Castelldefels when it was stranded. No alternative transportation was offered there, and she ended up in Barcelona sharing a taxi with other passengers from her train. Now she has no way to get home. "They haven't given me any alternative," she laments. She explains that she's been at the station since seven in the morning and that, although she was initially told that service would resume at 9:30 a.m., it didn't. "I haven't been able to get home for two days," she complains. Of all of them, however, the one who most regrets the lack of information is José Olivera, who arrived in Barcelona yesterday to go to Figueres, where his family lives. He says that, after being unable to get there by train yesterday, he found out what had happened through social media. "They should have informed us. We stood in front of the station screens for a long time without receiving any clear information," he says. This morning I was still trying to figure out how to get to Figueres by bus.

"It's absolute chaos"

Maria Morro, from Tarragona, had to travel to Barcelona this morning because her brother was having surgery and planned to take the commuter train. "When I checked my phone it was full of..." WhatsApps "My family told me the commuter trains weren't running," he explains. Faced with this setback, he looked for an alternative. He first thought about going by road, but saw that all the access roads to Barcelona were jammed, so he bought a high-speed train ticket to get to the hospital. "Delay," he laments from the Camp de Tarragona high-speed train station. "It's absolute chaos, a constant headache." “I don’t know how people can have to take the train every day,” she says. At the same station, Antonia and David, two retired residents of Alió (Alt Camp), are deciding whether to take the train or turn around and go home. And, like María, she has looked for an alternative. “This morning I already saw that it wasn’t a good day to travel,” says Antonia. She opted for the AVE high-speed train and is now delayed. It finally didn’t leave until 11:06 a.m.

The case of these two travelers is what hundreds of people experienced this morning who had planned to travel by commuter train to Barcelona but had to take the AVE and also suffer delays. “It’s been madness,” explains Andrea, the girl who works in the station cafeteria. “Let’s start 2026 off right,” says a colleague of hers ironically.

AVE passengers

During the morning there were also delays to high-speed trains arriving in Barcelona from Madrid, due to speed restrictions on various sections of the route. However, the disruptions were not significant: according to ARA's observations at the Sants station ticket counters, the longest delay was estimated to be around forty minutes. Several passengers explained that they had been informed of the situation over the public address system and that the delays were not excessive.

"Right at the start of the journey, the driver informed us that, as a preventative measure, the average speed would be reduced on different sections and that this would affect the arrival time. Fifteen minutes before arriving, however, he notified us that the delay would ultimately be only nine minutes," one passenger explained. José, who arrived on the next train, agreed: "We only arrived ten minutes later than expected." "With the latest news, it's impossible not to think the worst," he admitted.