“I have a complicated time, I have to go”laments a harried traveler who, 25 minutes before his train leaves, finds out in Atocha that the departure is from Chamartín. The railway chaos caused this weekend by the derailment of a train without passengers in the tunnel that connects the Atocha and Chamartín stations in Madrid, to which was added an incident involving the presence of a person in an unauthorized area, which paralyzed traffic for two hours, was still felt early in the morning. this Monday in Madrid. The sale of tickets has been blocked until this afternoon in order to relocate the affected passengers, around 15,000 according to Renfe. Some, the least, have had to change stations to catch their train; others, the majority, showed up at the station more time in advance than usual “just in case.”
Traffic in the Atocha-Chamartín tunnel has recovered this Monday with the opening of one of the tracks and the trains that connect Madrid with the Valencian Community and Murcia have begun to carry out their trains this morning. routes normally, with departure or arrival in Chamartín, except for the first two serviceswho have left from Atocha.
For the employee at the information desk in the lobby on the ground floor of Atocha This Monday started out being a harder day than usual. If it normally serves “about 500 people” per day, this morning those who have arrived running early to catch the 6:15 a.m. trains to Murcia and the 6:30 a.m. to Valencia have joined in. Both have suffered delays because they “have waited” for people who had not heard about this change and were traveling from Chamartín. Renfe sources assure 20 minutes that “all travelers were informed” through the usual channels (mail and SMS) of the change, which was communicated through social networks this Sunday at 8:03 p.m.
Even so, there were still people who had not found out about the change or who had received confusing information, such as a middle-aged traveler who showed up at Atocha 25 minutes before the departure of his train and found out right there that His train left from Chamartín. “Yesterday they told me that it was leaving from here (through Atocha) and now they are telling me that they have reset it again and that now we have to leave from there (by Chamartín). But look what time it is, it’s complicated for me, I have to go,” this traveler lamented.
Nuria, returning to Barcelona after a weekend with her family, heads more calmly to baggage control. On the way out, last Saturday, his train did “He stood still for two hours in Guadalajara”. He assures that “without making a claim or anything, my company (one of low cost) has sent me a voucher for the value of the ticket for future trips.”
In Chamartinorigin and destination of most of the trains to Levante, the atmosphere is normal, although many people have decided to increase “just in case” the time in advance with which to arrive at the station. This is the case of Isabel, who is 21 years old and is heading to Valencia “for work.” “I preferred to come an hour and ten in advance just in case” after seeing the weekend news, well “It’s not very fun to be left stranded“. He has not received any notice from the operating company, so he hopes “it will leave on time.”
Like Isabel, Luisa also arrived “an hour early” because she did not want to risk experiencing the same thing that her friends suffered this Sunday. “They had to leave Chamartín but they were transferred to Atocha on a train two hours later, and that train had problems and they left an hour later even“he explains.
Clara and Sara return to Valencia after an express trip to the capital. Although this Monday their train leaves on time, on the way there they were one of the 15,000 people affected by the incident that The Government has described it as “unusual” and has even raised the possibility that it was “sabotage”. These two users explain to 20 minutes who went out last Saturday with a company low cost two hours late and even after being evicted from the car a few minutes after sitting in their seats. “We arrived in Madrid around 11:00 p.m. when we should have arrived around 7:30 p.m. The wait on the train went well, with the lights on and the crew kept us informed at all times. Although At first there was a bit of uncertainty because as soon as we sat down they asked us to immediately leave the train, without further ado, we didn’t know what was happening.“, they explain. For their return, they have arrived at the station two hours in advance “just in case.” Their company, they say, has sent them three emails to keep them informed of the status of their trip in the last 48 hours and the forecast. It is normal.
The station is a coming and going of people dragging suitcases. Some in a hurry, others calmly. Some have just gotten married and have arrived from Valencia to now take a train to the airport from where they will fly to Thailand for their honeymoon. Others return from China after participating in the Kayak Polo World Championship in China –where, by the way, the Spanish under 21 men’s team has won gold and the women’s team has won silver-. They all agree with the advance notice that they have preferred to extend after finding out what happened this weekend.
Blanca, who has just said yes, explains to this newspaper that “The alternative was to take a rental car because we couldn’t risk missing the flight.“, but finally, since they did not receive any change notice and their train was not affected, they chose to continue as planned. Your train left “on time” and the trip went “perfect”.
Javier and Pablo return to Castellón after competing in China. There are still four hours until their train leaves and this morning they received an email and an SMS message to their cell phone confirming that their train was leaving “at the scheduled time.” However, they wanted to be foreseen: “We saw that a train had derailed and that’s why we came a little early. to prevent (possible incidents)”.
Daniel accompanies a family member to Alicante and his train “maintains the usual schedule despite the whole derailment issue.” The young man, 35 years old, is a resident of Madrid and a Cercanías user to travel to Colmenar Viejo. In his opinion, The quality of service “has declined a lot in the last four or five years, with many delays”.
For Gloria, 65, the day has started “without problems.” He has traveled from Córdoba to Atocha. From there he has changed to Chamartín because his journey continues to Santander. “I haven’t had any problems. It left 15 minutes later but they notified us with a message on our cell phone and, furthermore, it arrived only three minutes later. And now for Santander they have told me ‘no problems’.”
Renfe and Adif have reported that train circulation on the Madrid-Levante high-speed lines has returned to normal this Monday, although it will not be possible remove the derailed convoy until next weekend. The president of Renfe, Raül Blanco, announced on Onda Cero this morning that the withdrawal of the convoy will be left to work at night and this weekend, in which it has been announced that there will be some service cut to be able to take the train. Blanco has warned that the removal of the convoy, which did not carry passengers, will not be easy and that the technicians from Renfe and Adif are working on solutions, an operation that he has described as “very complex” due to the fact that working in a closed space entails.
