The The State Railways Company (EFE) made a positive assessment on Friday of the progressive resumption of its services after a stoppage which affected EFE Central for four days and its subsidiaries EFE Valparaíso and EFE Sur for three.
Following the agreement sealed on Wednesday with the unions, which demanded greater investments in security measures after the fatal collision of two trains that occurred last week near the commune of San Bernardothe state-owned company resumed operations yesterday, Thursday.
First the trains started running again Limache-Puerto, Nos-Alameda, Biotren, Corto Laja and Victoria-Temuco; and this Friday it was the turn of the tour Alameda-Rancaguawhich did so with 40% less than the usual service.
The president of the board of directors of EFE, Eric Martinthanked “for the trust, we are returning to operation,” and highlighted that the company transported nearly 60 thousand passengers this Friday.
“I also (want to) communicate that in the case of Valparaíso-Limache and on lines 1 and 2 of the Gran Concepción (Biotren), both are in normal operation, we have the same demand that we have had for these dates, I want to remember that there are children’s vacations and, therefore, We are quite satisfied from a performance point of view.“, he explained.
According to the schedule, The Curicó-Talca-Linares and Chillán-Alameda routes are expected to resume on Monday, although the latter is subject to testing.
“In the Chillán service today the route reviews were carried out, as agreed, we are waiting for the reports, and we hope during the weekend to be able to address the measures that must be taken to improve,” Martin pointed out.
RAILWAY OPERATION MANAGER REMOVED
In parallel, the state company is continuing technical investigations into the fatal accident that occurred in the early hours of Thursday, June 20, which resulted in two deaths and for which two people are accused – a train driver and the track controller on duty.
Meanwhile, this week it became known that the company removed from his position Guillermo Ramírez Muñoz, who since July 2019 had served as manager of Railway Operations in the subsidiary EFE Central.
The decision was communicated internally the day after the accident, and adopted with the aim of “giving the investigative process the greatest possible degree of independence.”
