On January 20, the driver of a train on the Rodalies line R4 died, which derailed towards Barcelona. The train accident occurred due to the fall of a retaining wall that invaded the track between the Catalan municipalities of Gelida and Martorell, in the Alt Penedès region. It was the trigger that generated the Rodalies crisis, the commuter and regional train service that operates in Catalonia and that has been generating protests among users for years.
Hours later, Catalan society as a whole, from political parties to business associations, demanded political responsibilities from the Ministry of Transport. Even from the Presidency of the Generalitat, Minister Albert Dalmau, who served as acting president due to the hospitalization of Salvador Illa, demanded “immediate solutions” and requested that Renfe and Adif assume responsibilities in the face of the accumulation of incidents and coordination problems. On January 26, in less than a week, the Government of Spain approved the dismissal of the director of Rodalies, Josep Enric García Alemanyand of General Director of Operation and Maintenance of Adif, Raúl Míguez Bailo –recently relocated as deputy director of Project Coordination and Transversal Actions, within the Adif Presidency Cabinet–.
In Andalusia, no action has been taken with the same speed, despite the fact that the collapse of an almost 300-meter wall in Álora, in the province of Málaga, has not been fixed for months. “There was a problem with the Cercanías in Barcelona and there was a sudden termination,” Juanma Moreno said yesterday to describe the Government’s reaction to one situation and another. He also recalled that with the railway crisis in Andalusia “there has not been a single responsibility either for the Adamuz accident or for the delay” in fully resuming high speed to Malaga.
The Junta de Andalucía has insisted on numerous occasions on tpreferential time that territories such as Catalonia and the Basque Country receive by the Government of Spain due to the support of the nationalist and independence parties for Pedro Sánchez. It has done so in terms of regional financing, debt forgiveness, investments in infrastructure, distribution of immigrant minors or financing of the dependency law. But the reality is that not even the assumption of political responsibilities has been the same standard.
The PP is not alone in considering that the Ministry of Transport would have been more diligent if the Álora wall was in another city. This was expressed yesterday by the spokesperson for Forward AndalusiaJosé Ignacio García, who admitted that, «yes instead of Malaga»the high-speed service that is currently suspended between said city and Madrid will arrive “to other cities in northern Spain”already would be “fixed”» the problem that prevents its reactivation for now. García was more restrained, but the message is the same from a left-wing Andalusian nationalist formation.
From IU, which is part of the Government through Sumar, no blood was drawn against the Ministry of Transport despite recognizing “the historical deficiencies presented by the Andalusian railway lines.” The solution of the federal coordinator of Izquierda Unida and candidate of the Por Andalucía coalition for the Presidency of the Board, Antonio Maíllo, is to claim powers in railway matters for Andalusia.
Meanwhile, the tourism and hospitality sector in Malaga continues to make calculations about the economic hole that this lack of rail connection will generate. The president of the Junta de Andalucía recalled that the primary position of Málaga on the tourist map of Andalusia since it receives “one in three tourists” who arrives in the regionthat is, “more than 10 million visitors.”
Furthermore, there is no certainty about the date the service will be reactivated or the conditions under which it will return. The regional administration recalls that Adif’s plans involve the infrastructure starting at the end of April with only one road in use, which will mean the activation of “fewer frequencies.”
Moreno regretted that “we cannot naturally assume the delays in the Andalusian railway network and we cannot be paying for high speed when there is no high speed because the times are not being met.”
In this context, the president of the PP of Malaga, Patricia Navarro, yesterday proposed to the Government that it use Cercanías trains on the conventional Guadalhorce line, from the María Zambrano station in the capital of Malaga to the Santa Ana station in the town of Antequera, to avoid the bus transfer that Renfe has currently enabled for AVE travelers to Madrid while the repair of the collapsed slope in Álora lasts. “This proposal is supported by experts, engineers and train drivers from Renfe whom we have consulted, it is feasible and necessary, and it would reduce the inconvenience to travelers and the time involved in transferring buses and long waits at the Santa Ana station,” he explained.
The railway situation will continue to be the protagonist until normality returns. The Andalusian Government has already instructed its Legal Office to appear in the proceedings opened in the Investigation section of the Court of Instance Plaza number 2 of Montoro (Córdoba) regarding the investigation of the Adamuz train accident (Córdoba) and included “evaluating the appropriate civil or criminal judicial actions”, which would allow financial compensation for the costs associated with facing the railway catastrophe by the Board. The Popular Group will also propose that the Andalusian Parliament study the cost to Malaga of the interruption of the High Speed.