The general director of Business and Operations, Óscar Gómez Barbero, has assured that they try to find “creative” solutions for the 13,700 people affected by the cancellations and modifications of trains registered this Sunday after the derailment of a convoy without passengers this Saturday in the tunnel that connects the Atocha and Chamartín stations and Madrid.
Barbero has explained to the media that this event has affected 3,200 people on Saturday and 13,700 people this Sunday, to whom they are sending communications two hours before the scheduled departure of the trains. Of these around 15,000 people, more than 6,000 people belong to the suppressed trains and more than 7,500 to trains that have changed the head of their journey.
Likewise, he has pointed out that In total, 22 trains have been affected by the two incidents this Saturday and 26 trains are affected at the station. although he clarifies that “they are on their normal schedule.” “Instead of arriving at Chamartín, which is the destination station for trains coming from Levante, these services stay in Atocha,” he indicated.
Barbero has clarified that those travelers who traveled to the Chamartín station are being helped to reach their destination with special commuter services. “During the day we will end up sending around 45,000 messages to our customers. We send these messages two hours before their train leaves, so that people can make the decision whether to come or not to come,” he explained.
For those affected customers, Renfe will try to “relocate” them, although Barbero warns that “it will not be possible to do so with all of them” and hopes to find “creative” solutions.
Among these solutions, the Renfe spokesperson has indicated that they are sending Media Distancia trains that take people from Alicante to Albacete, and to the city of La Mancha they send a “high capacity” Cercanías train to take those customers. “I can assure you that the best professionals in this sector are here at Renfe,” he praised.
IT IS NOT KNOWN WHAT THE SITUATION WILL BE TOMORROW
“They are all committed and dedicated to resolving the situation we have today, we know it is hard, it is going to be very difficult today, we hope that tomorrow, if we do not manage to fix the situation, we will improve what we have a little, but now We cannot say what the situation will be like tomorrow,” he admitted.
For the moment, Renfe has canceled the sale of tickets for tomorrow on the affected routes pending the evolution of the work to remove the damaged train.
Barbero closed his intervention by assuring that Renfe “has all the means and above all the best professionals” to get out of this situation. “We trust that we will solve this today. At the end of the day, where the operations capacity is greater, we will put in special trains, in case there are any travelers left to bring to Madrid,” he concluded.
In addition, he has indicated that the derailed train between Atocha and Chamartín has not yet been removed. “The train is still in the tunnel. We are in the evaluation procedure of what we have to do to restore operations as soon as possible.”
THE TWO INCIDENTS
On the other hand, Barbero has detailed what happened this Saturday, when around 4:00 p.m. a train without passengers derailed in the tunnel that connects the Atocha and Chamartín stations.
“This prevented the trains that go up to Chamartín from Levante from doing their high-speed services. What we did was provide a commuter shuttle service accompanied by people, for which we deployed almost 25 of our people to serve customers and know customers what they had to do, which in this case was to travel with these commuter trains to Atocha station,” he explained.
This situation “was more or less organized”, according to the general director of business and operations, when at 7:00 p.m. a second incident occurred, in which an individual threatened to “jump onto the tracks”, which caused a stoppage of the service. train for three hours.
“When you have an individual in the middle of the road, emergency procedures are activated, what they do is interrupt traffic. So, Atocha was left without traffic. This affected the surrounding areas, lines C7, C5, C4 and C3. It affected us on the Middle Distance and it also affected us on the Levante service, because it is precisely that bridge where the Levante line comes,” he stated.
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