Around 6,000 people, according to local police sources, took to the streets today to travel the narrow gauge railway route from the La Asunción stop to the La Asunción railway stop. Matallana Station to demand the arrival of the Feve train in the center of the city of León.
Summoned by the Defense Platform of the León Narrow Gauge Railway, the citizens, arriving from different points of the Leonese mountains in addition to the capital itself, denounced “the deplorable service on this public transport due, mainly and above all, to the fact that the train does not arrive at the station and to the forced transfer to the La Asunción stop”, as well as to “the absence of a plan from Renfe” to end the situation.
The Platform explained that the so-called “Matallana train” offered a “punctual and safe service until the end of 2011”, while from that moment “the renovation works started and abandoned a few months later prevented the train from arriving at the station and required a transfer to a bus for the journey to the station. This caused, according to a report from the Court of Auditors, “34 percent of commuters abandoned this service between 2010 and 2012”because “even if they needed it, it was of no use to them.”
That is why, in addition to emphasizing that the time has come for this train “to be the subject of special and urgent action within the framework of the European and Spanish plan against the depopulation of remote areas”, they asked the Ministry of Development and to Renfe to urgently, “plan and execute the necessary reforms so that the train arrives at the station in the center of León without intermediate transfers and thus regain the quality of service before 2011”.
On behalf of the aforementioned Platform, Mariví Gutiérrez, considered that “the time has come for civic responsibility” to ask that “all the investments made have not been in vain”, since the stopping of the train at the La Asunción stop “causes a lot of damage to all cities and to everyone” because “it stops in the middle of nowhere, forcing users to get on a bus”, even if “if they go with a stroller or a wheelchair, they cannot TO DO”.
“If the infrastructure is built and the tracks are there, why doesn’t the train pass?” asked Mariví, who considers that the answer “must be given by politicians”, because it is “a question of will” for “having done it”. things and then abandon them because no one asked for them. But “citizens have already become aware and know that they must do something”.
Regarding the possibility of transforming the route into a greenway, Gutiérrez called it “impossible to convert an investment of this caliber into a greenway” because “it is made so that the train reaches Padre Isla, where it has arrived forever “. “Every city that can have it is fighting to get it and we who have it are abandoning it. “It doesn’t make sense” he concluded.
Also present at the demonstration Railway Association of the Kingdom of Leónwhose spokesperson, Eduardo Tocino, demanded that “the people of León stop being fooled” because “after the latest responses that two more regulations are necessary and that the trains are under contract”, we arrive at the conclusion that “every time they come up with new lies. »
Tocino said he was convinced that “the service to the city center cannot be restored if the trains are not contracted as is done in Catalonia and if the regulations are not finalized”, despite the fact that “new regulations have been published” in the sleeve. and say they are not coordinated with the city’s traffic signals.”
The spokesperson for the Railway Association of the Kingdom of León lamented that “no one meets or makes decisions” while the reality is that “the 150,000 travelers who use the railway line each year are left abandoned”, who ““are insulted with a service that is not local. It is for this reason that he demanded that “the trains be rented, the regulations be finalized and constant and periodic meetings be held at the technical level to stop making fun of the people of León.”
