The CGT union has denounced the elimination of at least nine trains of Media Distancia (MD) and Proximity (Cercanías) this summer in the province of Córdoba. These trains are part of the 285 passenger convoys taking into account the Public Service Obligation (PSO) “which were cancelled during the months of July and August due to the abandonment of the Andalusian railway,” according to a press release sent by the CGT.
The reasons that prevented these 285 convoys, including the nine from Cordoba, from providing service can be summed up essentially in four causes: lack of material (lack of trains) due to breakdowns or incidents (47 percent); lack of staff railway locomotive drivers (39 percent); or that 9 percent were eliminated due to infrastructure incidents, with the remaining 5 percent being residual reasons, such as public order or others.
Most of the cancelled trains affected the three Cercanías centres in Andalusia, with the centre of Seville leading the way, followed by Malaga and Cádiz. pseudo core of Cordoba It also suffered these nine cancellations, four of which were on local trains, notably on July 1 with two trains cancelled; another train on July 15 and finally on August 20, as Miguel Montenegro, head of the railway sector of the CGT Andalusia, told ABC.
Montenegro stressed that these cuts “have a greater impact in the summer, because in itself, being summer period Fewer trains were running during the months of July and August.”
On the other hand, the suspensions of the Avant trains between Malaga-Granada-Seville, although they are not classified as Public Service Obligation (PSO) have caused thousands of users to be affected, especially due to the lack of trains, especially the Granada-Malaga route and vice versa, which has been the one that has suffered the greatest attack. But without forgetting not only the cancellation of trains but also the persistent delays over the last two months, as published by ABC.
Trains to Jaén most affected
As for medium-distance trains, the number of trains cancelled from or to Jaén is particularly high in proportion to the rail services it maintains, with the provincial capital being the most affected in these percentages. two months of summer when eight of the few rail links it maintained were closed, followed by the Seville/Málaga link and vice versa.
From the study carried out by the CGT Railway Sector during these two summer months, the alarming situation that Andalusia is experiencing in terms of railways emerges, not only due to the cancellation of trains which are a public service obligation, derived fundamentally from the lack of trains, the lack of workers rail and the abandonment of infrastructure maintenance, but it is necessary to emphasize the very significant increase in lack of punctuality and regularitywith delays that have been reported during this short and intense period.
However, the seriousness of the situation, in the opinion of this Renfe union, “is not only due to the suppression of trains that must guarantee the mobility of citizens because they are considered by the ministry as OSP, much more serious is that there are more than half of the Andalusian provinces in which public rail transport is residual or practically non-existent, in this case there are provinces such as Almeria, Granada, Jaén and Huelva or regions as important as Campo de Gibraltar.
