It is not being an easy summer for the bird. The campaign started with issues In one of its main arteries, the Madrid-Andalusia line, and has been challenging challenges such as The soap opera of the Avril trains, The suspension of services in several sections of the network by fire or A fault that a few days ago affected the Andalusian high speed line. Now, with a good part of the holiday country, add a new challenge that puts the tip: The paralysis of the Madrid-Galicia line.
And all this with demand in record levels
What happened? That fires have forced Renfe to suspend for hours its services between Madrid and Galicia. Yesterday afternoon the operator He already advanced The stoppage of the trains because the flames were close to the tracks between Vilavella and Galicia Porta and the final blockade It was confirmed hours later.
The Initial idea It was resume the services today, but it could not be so. At 7.30 h the operators still They kept examining The ways to confirm that traffic will be recovered with guarantees. Shortly before ten Renfe published in X A message Informing the restoration of the service, but the decision lasted little. Hour and a half after He turned back: “For fire reactivation, the rail service between Madrid and Galicia is interrupted again.”
Later Renfe went up A new tweet clarifying that he had been forced to interrupt the circulation between Puebla de Sanabria and Ourense by order of the Cecopi of Castilla y León (Civil Protection). “The traying trains will be separated in stations until the circulation is guaranteed,” he concluded.
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Is it the only one affected? No. So far this fire has affected other sections in which Renfe operates. The flames have interfered in the service with greater or less reach in Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia, Castilla y León either Estremaduraamong other points. In June A fire Between the stations of Valladolid-Campo Grande and Río Duero forced to suspend the high-speed service in the Madrid-Segovia-Valladolid and Madrid-Gijón lines and In July The flames forced to paralyze the line by which the bird that connects Madrid and Andalusia.
Is it something exceptional? To a greater or lesser extent, Spain usually looks like forest fires in summer (more than more than 47,700 hectares) and It is not strange that in some cases the fire affects the rail network. In this case, the flames, especially those of Galicia, who have altered the corridor that communicates the community with Madrid for hours, they arrive, however, in a summer in which Renfe has had to deal with other challenges.
The campaign began with A considerable chaos in one of the main arteries of the Spanish high speed Redee: the line between Madrid and Andalusia. A fault In a catenary between the Yeles (Toledo) and La Sagra, southwest of the Community of Madrid, affected the services that connected with the South and forced to suspend trains, generated delays and left a notable anger among the affected travelers. “We have been trapped in the middle of a plain, without electricity or bathrooms, with unbearable heat,” He denounced A user in X.
Has anything else happened? That episode came shortly after, in May, the operator had to deal with Another chaotic episode in the AVE Madrid-Sevilla that left trains detained for hours and thousands of affected passengers. The reason on that occasion was not a fire, but the theft of copper cable on the tracks, which even led Renfe’s president to publicly lament how difficult it is to control the vast network of the country. “You cannot monitor 24 hours 15,000 km of network, but you will have to put more means,” assumed Álvaro Fernández de Heredia.
With that backdrop, in recent weeks Renfe has faced Another controversyalthough of a quite different nature. A few days ago it transcended that Renfe has decided to do without the Avril trains (106 series) in his Madird-Barcelona line and replace them with convoys series 103. The decision comes after the operator detected technical problems in the machinery and forced him to make a ‘sudoku’ to relocate trains of series 103 and 102 to meet the demand.
Is it all negative? No. Summer may be more moved than Renfe wanted, but has started with an important level of demand. A few days ago the operator launched A statement To show that Julio closed with his “best monthly historical record of travelers” in AVE and long distance.
Throughout the month he counted about 3.5 million travelers, 4.6% more than in June, which held so far the “historical maximum”. The increase is based on high -speed services (AVE and AVLO), which saw how their place offer It increased by 13.9% and the flow of travelers 10.5% compared to 2024. The highest rise were registered between Madrid-Valencia and Zaragoza-Barcelona.
Images | Ministry of Defense (X) and John Worth (Flickr)
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