Normality is once again the general trend this Monday in Atocha, after the weekend rail chaoswhich affected thousands of travelers after the derailment of a high-speed train in the tunnel between this station and Chamartín, known as El Chato. According to Renfe in a joint statement with AdifTraffic in this tunnel has been restored at dawn, but the trains circulate on a single track as the damaged convoy is still in place, which will not be removed until the weekend to “reduce the impact” on trains and passengers. Thus, the trains are leaving for Levante and arriving from there first thing this Monday as scheduled, except for the first two, one towards Murcia (6.15) and another towards Valencia (6.30), which have departed from Atocha instead of Chamartín ” by decision of Renfe,” according to an Adif spokesperson. In addition, another train from Alicante ended its journey at 8:14 in Atocha, instead of in Chamartín. The Cercanías lines that run through Atocha, C3, C4, C5 and C7, also operate normally this Monday after the interruption on Saturday due to the presence of a man who threatened to jump onto the tracks from a bridge.
The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, this Monday disconnected the cuts to the Madrid Cercanías and high-speed routes with the Levante this Sunday from the alleged “lack of investment” in the railway network and attributed it to an incident “ truly serious”, as was the derailment of the convoy in the tunnel between the Atocha and Chamartín stations that occurred on Saturday while it was being towed to workshops.
In an interview in RNE4 with Gemma NiergaPuente has stated that the derailment will be investigated. “It is something truly serious that a train that is being towed to workshops breaks off as it seems to have broken off from the train that was towing it and ends up against a tunnel wall.” The minister has even said that at this time, the Government cannot inject more money into the system. “We cannot invest more because the network does not support it,” he stated.
As a spokesperson for the infrastructure administrator explains to this newspaper, traffic in the Atocha-Chamartín high-speed tunnel has recovered at 3:30 after the “intense work to repair the infrastructure elements damaged by the departure of one of the axles. of the cars of a train that was running empty, without passengers.” At that time, one of the two tracks has been put into service, despite the fact that the convoy that was injured on Saturday is still overturned in the tunnel, after verifying “that the unaffected track meets the necessary safety conditions so that companies operating in “This railway corridor can recover its routes with origin and destination at the Chamartín station.”
Therefore, except for the three mentioned trains, “those that connect the Valencian Community and Murcia with Madrid will begin or end their journey at the Madrid Chamartín Clara Campoamor station,” the joint note details. “The tasks to remove the train that still remains inside the tunnel will be resumed this weekend to reduce the impact on trains and passengers,” the statement added. Adif and Renfe “have mobilized a special technical device to face this operation, which is particularly complex given the characteristics of the space in which it is carried out. After the removal of the material, it will be necessary to evaluate the condition of the road and proceed with its repair,” the companies warn. On Saturday, October 26 and Sunday, October 27, the trains between Madrid and the east of the peninsula would return punctually, and only during the weekend, to begin or end their journey at Madrid’s Puerta de Atocha station.
At the Joaquín Sorolla station in Valencia, Nuria, a Physiotherapy student, arrived in Valencia at 9:00, half an hour late, on the Madrid Ave. It’s not much after what happened to him on Saturday. She spent three hours stopped on the AVE in the Chamartín tunnel. “It was terrifying,” he says. Even though the power went out on several occasions, the passengers in his car remained calm. She tried to “take advantage of it to sleep.” Her weekend with her boyfriend, who lives in Madrid, was more eventful and shorter than she expected. “Anyway, now that’s it,” he says before returning to his daily life in Valencia. He complains because the website where he obtained the ticket to return to Valencia this Monday did not warn him that the convoy was leaving from Atocha and not from Chamartín, and he had to move quickly, like other passengers.
The same thing did not happen to Elisa, because she consulted social networks and saw that her AVE was leaving from Atocha, so she went directly to the station in the center of Madrid. “We left half late now to wait for the travelers from Chamartín,” says this young audiovisual professional who is going to spend a week in Valencia for work. At the Valencia AVE station there is relative tranquility this morning. The trains from Madrid are arriving more or less late. “Our train leaves at the moment without delay. Let’s see what happens,” says Teresa, along with her mother, from Xàtiva. Both “Teresas” are going to spend a couple of days in Madrid. “Today is free and tomorrow we will see the musical ‘The Lion King’,” says the daughter. “Today has nothing to do with the atmosphere yesterday afternoon, when I went to the station to ask and there were canceled trains and many delays,” intervenes a passenger who has heard the conversation and is waiting to be assigned. platform to your train. “They should have done it already. “We will see,” he comments.
The train stranded in the tunnel does not affect Cercanías services, so this service is operating normally at this time, entering and leaving Atocha according to its schedules. One user, María Eugenia Corrales, a traveler to Canto Blanco, assures that first thing in the morning the service usually works well. “Starting at 8:00 is when people and incidents begin to accumulate,” he comments. At the Chamartín station, the morning also passes without incident. The peak hours for Cercanías departures, from 6:00 to 9:00, have passed without incident. Despite the fact that there is a lot of people, the information point remains empty, except for some travelers trying to change their ticket.
About 9.00 in the morningThere has been a breakdown on Cercanías Line 4 at the entrance to Fuencarral station that has nothing to do with what happened over the weekend. This incident is causing delays and stoppages in the movement of trains. In Chamartín, a crowd of people has formed waiting to be relocated on the C-4a branch, in the direction of Alcobendas-San Sebastián, whose Chamartín route crosses the point where the breakdown was recorded. After a few minutes, the train has arrived and the travelers have been able to get on, but they will be the last to take it for a while. Cercanías de Madrid has warned by
