Catalonia’s two main metropolitan areas, Barcelona and Tarragona, will be cut off from the rail network for at least five months. The extension of the tunnel near the town of Roda de Berà, to adapt it to the track width of the Mediterranean Corridor, represents one of the most significant impacts in the recent history of the Regional and Rodalies railway network.
The works, which begin this Monday at 11:30 p.m. and will last until March 2, 2025, interrupt train traffic between Tarragona and Sant Vicenç de Calders, which will complicate the route for more than 12,000 daily passengers. They are the ones who use the lines that connect Barcelona from the south of Catalonia: the R14, R15, R16, R17 and RT2. The alternative proposed by Renfe involves, on the one hand, shuttles in the case of Tarragona and, on the other hand, a detour inland for those coming from Reus.
The impact of the work is very worrying for the majority of users, accustomed to dealing with regular incidents and delays, and has forced the approval of an alternative transport plan which provides for 661 daily bus trips and whose cost is higher than that of the works. themselves. Its implementation required coordination meetings to be held until the last minute between Adif, Renfe, the government, the town halls concerned and the travel platforms.
The intervention also coincides with the negotiations between the central government and the Generalitat for the overall transfer of the Rodalies network, which should begin to become effective in January 2025.
“There is a lot of anxiety among passengers, it can be chaos, that is why we recommend everyone to keep an open mind,” summarizes Ana Gómez, spokesperson for the Dignitat a les Vies platform and user weekly train between Tarragona and Barcelona. If you usually cover the route in 1 hour and 15 minutes, starting this Monday you estimate that you will need to add about 30 additional minutes.
Gómez warns that the setbacks the work causes for users can add insult to injury. “I don’t remember a whole week on this line without incident in recent years,” he emphasizes. “Obviously, infrastructure needs to be repaired and adapted, including freight infrastructure, but what is missing is more trains,” adds the entity’s spokesperson.
The concern extends to municipal councils. From Tarragona, the councilor for traffic and mobility, the socialist Nacho Arnau, also asks for “patience” in the face of works which respond to “a greater good”. But he takes the opportunity to demand that the improvement be accompanied by some of the requirements of the municipality for years, such as that the trains adapt to daily demand: “This cannot be the case from the morning they put short trains, not double trains and people walk to Barcelona.
What do the works consist of?
Despite its complexity and impact, the Roda de Berà tunnel is one of the many works underway to deploy the Mediterranean freight corridor, and in Tarragona alone it currently accumulates 2,528 million euros of mobilized investments . A work very similar to the one that starts this Monday is that carried out in the Castellbisbal tunnel (Barcelona), a passage open since last March.
To adapt the facilities to the international width, Adif plans to install a third lane on the two roads, which will allow their mixed use for standard and Iberian dimensions. For this to be possible, the level of the tunnel must be lowered over its 422 meter length. The work will also include the replacement of thousands of meters of catenary and track, reinforcement of the tunnel support, its waterproofing and the installation of new wire changers. The cost will reach 16 million euros.
Faced with criticism from certain users that the improvements only apply to the freight corridor and not to the passenger corridor, Adif defends that this work will also promote the circulation of Regional and Rodalies trains. From the outset, they emphasize that, as in Castellbisbal, once the works are completed, the temporary speed limit at this stage can be removed. “It will allow, among other advantages, the circulation of trains of up to 120 km/h,” reports the company.
Furthermore, Adif adds that although the work on the Roda de Berà tunnel has attracted all the attention, it will be accompanied by numerous interventions to improve the railway infrastructure in this same section, between Tarragona and Sant Vicenç de Calders. Among them, a new configuration of the tracks in the station of the latter city (they will be extended until June, with specific reductions), actions in the stations of Tarragona, Altafulla and Torredembarra, or new control and monitoring facilities. signaling “of great importance for the operation of the conventional gauge network in the south of Barcelona”, they insist.
This is what the Alternative Transport Plan looks like
The alternative transportation plan essentially has two parts. One of them is the road trips, which will serve to cover the distance to Sant Vicenç de Calders from Tarragona, but also from l’Hospitalet de l’Infant, Vila-seca-Cambrils and Salou-Port Aventura. To achieve this, Renfe will provide passengers with 87 buses for a total of 661 daily journeys and more than 30,000 seats.
On the other hand, the R14 and R15, which pass through Reus, will be diverted along the line that connects Sant Vicenç de Calders to Valls and Plana-Picamoixons, which will add time to the journey but will avoid transfers on the road.
Renfe defends that this alternative transport plan is one of the most ambitious and expensive ever proposed. Its cost amounts to 26.5 million euros and also includes the reinforcement of frequencies on the R2 South line, one of the busiest in Catalonia – that of Granollers to Sant Vicenç de Calders via Barcelona –, or the R15 towards Valls.
