Commuter trains back in Spain’s Catalonia after deadly accident

MADRID – Commuter trains resumed for hundreds of thousands of passengers in Spain’s Catalonia region on Jan 23 after a deadly accident caused their suspension, in a week of rail disasters that have shaken the country.

A service on the north-eastern region’s Rodalies short-distance network ploughed into the rubble of a collapsed retaining wall near Barcelona on Jan 20, killing the driver and injuring 37 people.

The network shut on Jan 21 and 22 while the infrastructure was reviewed and drivers refused to return to work, saying safety checks had not been carried out properly.

Rodalies announced in a statement that its trains were resuming on Jan 23 “but may be delayed due to the progressive resumption of the service”.

Catalonia’s regional government said the frequency of services “would gradually increase on each line”, while around 100 extra buses would be put on to cope with demand.

The accident came just two days after the

Jan 18 c

ollision between two high-speed trains

in the southern region of Andalusia that killed 45 people, one of Europe’s deadliest such disasters this century.

Spain observed three days of national mourning after the tragedy, whose causes are being investigated.

The back-to-back accidents have raised doubts about the safety of train travel in the European Union’s fourth-largest economy, which boasts the world’s second-biggest high-speed network.

The Semaf train driver union has called a three-day strike in February, saying their warnings about safety had gone unheeded. AFP