This afternoon, we shared the cracks that Renfe has detected in one of the bogies of the tractor unit of one of the 106 series trains destined to cover the Avlo Madrid-Barcelona.
In the story, we indicated that, as a result, Renfe had suspended ticket sales on this route until 31 August. This information was revealed by elEconomista and was verified in Renfe’s ticket sales.
Subsequently, at 21:19, Renfe issued a press release entitled Renfe reorganises the Madrid-Barcelona Avlo routes in which, in line with the press release on which we based the previous news item, it states that:
Once this revision was completed, Renfe adopted the necessary measures to guarantee the proper functioning of the service, replacing the affected systems and reinforcing the technical revisions, so that the trains are operating without any type of anomaly.
In addition, inspections have been carried out on the rest of the trains that constitute the entire Series 106 fleet, with no abnormalities observed.
The sale of Avlo tickets on the Madrid-Barcelona line continues as normal. At no time has the sale of seats been suspended, and the service continues to operate as planned.
Ticket sales on Avlo Madrid-Barcelona ARE suspended
We do not question the efforts of Renfe, Talgo and Tarvia (joint maintenance company) to solve the problems of cracks and other anomalies that the trains may suffer. Furthermore, the internal communiqué to which we have had access indicates that maintenance work has been intensified following the detection of a problem.
However, another visit to the Renfe website shows that the denial is not entirely true. After checking ticket availability for several days until 31 August, the Avlo Madrid-Barcelona and vv. trains show the message “This train is currently not available for sale.”
To see an Avlo in this list with seats on sale, it is necessary to wait until 1 September. Furthermore, Renfe has not indicated what happens to passengers who already have tickets to travel on one of the trains whose sale is blocked.
Given that this is the busiest time of the year and that we are talking about an issue that affects safety, we believe that Renfe should be more transparent.