They are subway enthusiasts, suburban activists. It is not easy to know how many there are in Barcelona and in Catalonia but what is clear is that they are pissed off, turned on by the decision of Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) to scrap two wagons, the last of the 1100 series that were on rails. On Tuesday they were withdrawn from circulation. They were in the Vall d’Hebron garage.
They made their last trip to the Triangle Ferroviari and The forecast was that this Thursday they would be transferred to be dismembered by a scrap dealer. But TMB sources report that this decision has been postponed, not because the future of the wagons is being reconsidered, but because of a permit issue.
This nit s’ha retired from the Vall d’Hebron cotxeres the last train of the 1100 series that remained to Sant Genís and here we said the gate to dismount 🥲😭 #MetroBcn pic.twitter.com/6xafSiG5Xd
— CGT metro Barcelona (@CGTmetroBCN) May 3, 2022
asbestos and money
Enthusiasts of the subway’s heritage do not understand why the company destroys the cars instead of preserving them. TMB argues that it already has three wagons of that series saved in the Triangle Ferroviari, and that it cannot save more for two reasons essentially. One, the available space. Other: the cars, like so many others from the subway’s past, contain asbestos. Extracting this asbestos has an economic cost that is too high to do it by system, according to company sources.
Suburban activists affirm that keeping the two wagons would serve to join them with the other three –in fact years ago the five formed a group– and compose an entire train (five wagons are the ones that fit in a station) with which to make historical tours from time to time.
Members of the collective have opened a collection of signatures on Change.org in which they call to avoid the dismantling of the 1,100 series. The initiative recalls that the trains began to travel through suburban Barcelona in the 1970s, after being manufactured partly in the Catalan capital, partly in Germany and partly in Switzerland. After four decades circulating on lines 4 and 5, its withdrawal began in 2006 and in 2009 only two trains were running of series 1100 in 4. Almost 400 people had signed this Thursday in favor of the preservation of the wagons.
poor preservation
The defenders of the heritage not only denounce the treatment that these two wagons will receive. They also underline that the three that TMB keeps in the Triangle are in very poor condition, vandalized, with broken glass and full of graffiti.
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Company sources reply to all the complaints, emphasizing that the usual policy is to preserve the heritage by way of save “a representative vehicle from each series & rdquor;. In the specific case of the three wagons of the 1100 series stored in the Triangle Ferroviari, TMB specifies that the composition is made up of “two engines and a trailer”, with which two types of vehicle of the same series are preserved.
Arguments that do not convince subway enthusiasts who believe that TMB is not committed to maintaining the railway memory by taking care of its heritage.