Year 2020. Renfe awards CAF the delivery of 31 trains to operate on the Cercanías services of Asturias and Cantabria. The reason was as simple as it was understandable: the average age of the fleet was already 28 years. Four years later, the renewal of the promised trains is once again delayed.
It’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“In principle”. This is what Álvaro Fernández Heredia, president of Renfe, has confirmed, who a few days ago assured that the promised trains for Asturias and Cantabria will not arrive until 2027 in an interview with the specialized media. Trenvista. If the plans are fulfilled, of course.
And these same trains should arrive next year. In 2024, Transport reiterated its intention that the first tests would be carried out in the first half of 2026 and it was assured that we would see them on the roads that same year. Last September, yes in 2025, was still expected that the trains would make an appearance in a few months.
Now, Fernández Heredia says that “in principle, these trains will be in service in 2027.” A statement that leaves fear of new future delays floating.
The trains. What Renfe awarded to CAF was the delivery of 31 new trains to be distributed between the Cercanías services of Cantabria and Asturias. When said award was announced It was mentioned that the intention was to renew a fleet that was already an average of 28 years old. It was 2020 and the contract was valued at 258 million euros.
Five years later, the residents of Asturias and Cantabria will continue traveling on trains with more than four decades behind them in some cases. At the moment, there is no trace of the 31 Metric Gauge trains (25 electric and six hybrid) that should be able to circulate at a maximum of 100 km/h and have space to transport bicycles.
The tunnels. It was the great scandal of this award. In 2023, when CAF began building the trains, it found that something strange was happening with the order. The trains ordered They didn’t enter through the tunnels… more or less.
The trains that were intended to be launched are too wide for the Asturian and Cantabrian infrastructure. Order FOM/1630/2015established new measures for gauges on newly built roads. These new measures aim to leave more space between the train and the walls of the tunnels to facilitate evacuations in case of breakdown and were the ones that were sent from Adif to CAFwithout taking into account the infrastructure prior to 2015. Hence it was said that the new trains for Asturias and Cantabria They did not enter through the tunnels.
Faced with this situation, there was no choice but to ask: is it better to change the trains or change the infrastructure? Given the cost of the second intervention, the first was chosen.
Yes, sure. Despite everything, the intention was the same: to maintain the plans that the trains would arrive in 2026. Now we know that this will not be the case and that they will do so in 2027… “in principle”, in the words of the president of Renfe himself. In The Commerce They review all the occasions in which Renfe has maintained its intention to have the trains ready next year. In addition to the cases already mentioned, the Government reiterated its intentions in February 2024 and July 2024. Since then, silence.
“It rains in the wet”. This is what the Cantabrian Government complains about when asked by The Confidential. The regional Executive focuses on the fact that this latest delay is just one more of all the drifts that the case has had and the constant problems that citizens experience.
The Association of Rail and Mobility Users (Affecom) highlights that from “Luarca to Oviedo there are about 90 kilometers and it takes almost three hours. (…) It takes us the same time to go to Madrid as it does to travel 90 kilometers through the Principality of Asturias.”
And they highlight another detail: there are many breakdowns in stations where there is no coverage of any kind. This is a problem because, first of all, the passenger has no way to communicate by mobile phone to notify of a delay. It would not be (so) serious if it were exceptional but this summer, between July and August, the Asturian PP assures that 800 incidents were recorded that affected 1,000 services.
Photo | André Marques 432
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