The former director of Rodalies, Antonio Carmona, signs for Adif

BarcelonaThe 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.

Among his new duties, Carmona will also coordinate actions with the Generalitat, local councils, and the rest of the administrations and involved agents, as stated in the job competition guidelines. He will have to prepare and monitor the network's work plan—including the planning of investments, costs, and calendars—, report periodically on the progress of projects, and prepare an annual follow-up report. Among the tasks described for his new position in the call for applications, there is also the analysis of demand, the detection of new planning needs, and possible sources of funding, in addition to ensuring that everything is developed in accordance with safety and risk prevention criteria.

Carmona is therefore starting a new stage away from the operator Renfe, where he has spent his entire professional career, spanning 25 years. He started as a technician and head of Communication, then as director of Rodalies, and subsequently, once again, as institutional spokesperson. In recent months, he had been assigned to other tasks within the operator. Now, in this new stage, the person who was the visible face of Rodalies until just a few months ago will not be far from the trains, because he will now be in charge of managing the tracks.

Constant changes in the leadership

Since he was appointed director of Rodalies in March 2024, Carmona has held various positions at Renfe in just a few months. His tenure as director only lasted ten months. Afterwards, as this newspaper reported, he was removed from these duties and the operator placed a new operational director chosen from Madrid, Josep Enric García Alemany, in charge, who was later also dismissed following the crisis at Rodalies.

Since then, the management of Renfe in Catalonia has been in the hands of Òscar Playà, the CEO of Rodalies Catalunya, the new joint venture that began operating a few months ago and must handle the transfer of Rodalies. Last July, Renfe decided to let Carmona go from the management and he was relegated to "duties in commercial services", as confirmed by the train company.