The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, has harshly criticized this Wednesday the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, for presenting "with fanfare" the incorporation of new trains to the Cercanías network of the Community of Madrid that had to be removed "barely two weeks later."
"The people of Madrid do not deserve to be announced with fanfare new Cercanías trains and have them withdrawn because they are unable to provide the service, nor a minister who is more attentive to Formula 1 than to solving the train problems" in the region, emphasized the Madrid mayor.
Renfe, for its part, has explained that "adjustments and improvements" are being made to the new trains manufactured by Stadler that will serve on the Cercanías Madrid lines, with 20% more capacity. The operator has detailed that several compositions are conducting test runs and technical verifications to perfect their performance and reliability, work that "does not imply, in any case, the withdrawal of the trains from circulation," whose return to regular service is expected in the coming days.
In a media briefing at the Municipal Volunteer Center, Almeida reproached that the arrival of these trains to the Cercanías network of Madrid was announced "in a propagandistic manner" and that "barely two weeks later" after the first three units began to circulate in tests, it became known "that they cannot enter into operation."
In this line, he has attacked the Minister of Transport, the highest responsible for the Cercanías network, whom he accuses of engaging in "unnecessary provocations" and "insulting" and "disqualifying" instead of focusing on properly managing the service. "If I had the intellectual and personal caliber of Óscar Puente, I could easily say now 'what a mess' or 'the little trains' or make some sailor joke as he likes to do on Twitter," the mayor reproached.
"As I do not have his intellectual and political caliber and let everyone interpret it as they wish, I limit myself to saying that the people of Madrid do not deserve to have this minister," Martínez-Almeida concluded.