Everyone knows about the delays that happen on Renfe Rodalies trains in Catalonia. The Rodalies services, the suburban and regional services whose transfer to Catalan management is claimed by the Generalitat, are notorious for running late due to breakdowns, incivic behaviour, people being run over... However, on the R16 train line, this Wednesday, August 9th, an unprecedented, unusual and surprising event happened, which cause the train to leave half an hour late.
Specifically, a driver of the R16 train, just as he was about to start the journey from Tortosa to Barcelona, caught one of his ticket inspectors having sex with a woman. The engine driver - apart from his simple surprise at the scene he had come across - also noted with concern that the two protagonists were carrying out their sexual practices in such a position that they were in contact with the controls he had to manipulate to undertake the journey.
The driver requested a change of cabin
For this reason, the driver, apart from reporting the facts to his superior, refused to drive the locomotive, in which a sex scene had taken place minutes before, as Diari de Tarragona explains. For this reason, he asked for his driver's cabin to be switched for a cleaner one.
After half an hour, and after detaching the driver's cabin from the wagons and attaching another, the train, which was due to leave at 8:55pm, left Tortosa for the Estació de França in Barcelona. The cabina del desig remained in the Baix Ebre county for a thorough cleaning.
Renfe opens inquiry into ticket conductor
The Renfe rail operator, for its part, has opened an inquiry into the ticket inspector which, depending on the conclusions drawn from it, may lead to disciplinary action, as radio station RAC1 explained.
Beyond this isolated incident, delays on the Rodalies services are a constant in the lives of the Catalans who use them. As an example, last Friday, August 4th, trains on the R2 South line experienced delays of around 45 minutes due to a person being hit on the line, which forced two tracks to be closed. This caused R2-SUD trains, on the line that goes from Sant Vicenç de Calders, through Vilanova i La Geltrú and Sitges to Barcelona, to run late throughout that Friday afternoon.
The data says it all: on a total of 284 days in 2022 there was at least one serious incident affecting the services, which means that on four out of every five days there were problems at one or more points in the network. A total of 17,667 Rodalies trains were affected by delays during the year.