The Government of Asturias presented a few days ago in Brussels the tourism promotion campaign "110 minutes from Paradise".
Just over an hour and a half for just under 1,200 kilometers that separate the European capital from a Natural Paradise in which the council of Llanes is one of the favorite tourist destinations for those who travel to Asturias.
The problem is that, if they decide to make the journey between Oviedo, the capital of the Principality, and the town in eastern Asturias on a commuter train from the Feve division of Renfe, it will take them three hours to travel the hundred kilometers that separate the two localities.
That is if there are no breakdowns in the trains, the catenaries, there is a voltage drop in the network or there are obstacles on the track.
This is a story that sinks its origin in time and that has many proper names that were adding lace to the commuter trains of the North.
The Government of Felipe González opted for the highway to structure the national territory (national highway network), first creating the public company Atcar, which became Enatcar to manage the passenger transport concession by road that Renfe owned.
Given the mismanagement, the government decides to privatize it and awards Enatcar to the Alsa group.
Faced with this decision, the governments of Catalonia, Valencia and the Basque Country, within the framework of their respective autonomy statutes, assume the powers and begin to manage the old Feve lines in their territories.
On the other hand, Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and Castilla y León resigned from assuming the railway management.
Francisco Álvarez-Cascos arrived at the Ministry of Development in the year 2000 and appointed Professor Ramón Tamames to preside over a commission whose objective is to cut the workforce of Feve, for which he has the collaboration of the then director of human resources of the railway company, Cristóbal Páez Vicedo, former manager of the Popular Party and prosecuted for the Bárcenas papers.
The Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero appointed in 2008 the former general secretary of the PSOE of Castilla y León, Angel Villalba, as president of Feve, who ended his term in the Court of Auditors.
The final lace is given by the former Minister of Development of the Popular Party, Ana Pastor.
In 2012, the integration of Feve into Renfe was decreed, an old aspiration and demand of the Feve workers, but the workers did not obtain equalization until 5 years after the integration and no investment was carried out on the track, in the maintenance and material.
"The perception of the workers is that Renfe never wanted us and if Feve went badly, with Renfe it goes worse," says Dacio Alonso, current president of the Asturias Consumers Union and a retired worker from Feve.
Without investments and without spare parts
The Government's measure to maintain free transport on Cercanías and Media Distancia trains of Feve and RENFE is hindered by the closure to traffic of the Berrón-Laviana route, the lack of coordination of schedules and the lack of investment in infrastructure and railway material.
The suburban trains that circulate through the communities that did not assume the railway powers at the time have an average age that exceeds the useful life established at 30 years.
The Asturian Feve trains are 31 years old on average and will reach 34 if the promise of the Ministry of Transport is fulfilled that the first new units that CAF must manufacture are ready in 2026. The average age of the trains in Spain, meanwhile, stands at about 19 years.
And this advanced age translates into these moments when almost half of the 43 commuter trains that Feve has in Asturias are out of service or in the workshops.
According to known data, there are currently 17 damaged trains and only 26 operational, which leaves little room for maneuver since the company sets 25 trains that are needed daily to cover the service.
Therefore, any inconvenience generates cancellations that have become commonplace.
A difficult problem to solve with the current media.
With the integration of Feve into Renfe ten years ago, it was decided to put an end to the abundant stock of spare parts that the Feve warehouses had and right now with units that are so many years old it is impossible to find spare parts.
Hence, the agreement signed between the Ministry and the governments of Asturias and Cantabria includes an immediate readjustment of the trains that are running in order to maintain the service until the new units arrive.
Add to this the unexpected.
The Railway Administrator, ADIF, has filed more than ten complaints with the National Police and the Civil Guard for theft and acts of vandalism on the Gijón-Laviana line.
Among the thefts, the theft of 42 inductive joints, necessary for the correct operation of the train detection systems, and more than eight hundred meters of wire necessary for the supply of electricity to the trains and catenary equipment, stand out.
And let's not talk about unforeseen schedules, due to delays or advances.
The traveler Nacho García —a regular user of public transport— gives a clear example: “I arrived at the Feve stop in Avilés to go to Candás.
What would be my surprise when they announce the arrival of the train about five minutes before the scheduled time.
But the surprise was even greater when the doors opened, we got on and the train started without respecting the scheduled departure time”.
It is the summarized story of a progressive abandonment that, as Dacio Alonso points out, is going to cost more than money to solve it: "The grotesque of the gauges, tunnels and trains of Feve is only a minimal consequence of a historical process to ruin a public company and despise systematically to its users.
Despite the free commuter trains, today many trains in Feve are empty.
This clearly summarizes how much has to be done to recover the trust and credibility of a public means of transport”.
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